


Learning to Live

by warningfandomobsessed



Series: Loved in Spite of Ourselves [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Administrative Errors, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Blood, Blow Jobs, Christmas, Dead Poets Society Spoilers, F/M, First Time, Fist Fights, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hanukkah, Homophobia, Hospitals, I promise, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Injury, Jesus I swear this is not as dismal as the tags are making it out to be, Lack of Communication, M/M, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Smoking, Stealing, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2020-07-31 03:04:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 111,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20108140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warningfandomobsessed/pseuds/warningfandomobsessed
Summary: We pick up just less than a week from where we left off with our characters. Grantaire and Enjolras are still very much in love, Grantaire's father is still a shit-bag and everyone is just trying their best, okay?orThe one where Grantaire has to stop avoiding his problems and deal with them and Enjolras needs to learn that there are things in the world that can't be fixed through affirmative action.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go with part 2!
> 
> With regards to some of the tags, I will add a warning at the beginning of chapters that talk about suicide (nothing is actually shown and we are being told it as a story) (there is no actual suicide) or the more graphic violence. 
> 
> Also, this volume is rated M because, in this one, we do have some gettin' down and dirty, but not graphically, so... you have been warned!
> 
> Also also, this story will be updated once a week instead of every three days like the last one. Not because I'm losing interest in the story, no, nothing like that! It's just a little more intense than part 1 and, as you can see in the tags, it deals with a lot pretty heavy stuff and I want to be able to feel like I'm doing it justice without having to rush to meet a deadline. I hope you understand!
> 
> Enjoy!

There’s a lot to be said for the relaxing capabilities of being surrounded by people you love as you watch the mid-day sunlight filter through the treetop canopy. Really, if Enjolras put any stock in that sort of thing, he would say that it was very zen.

And it was.

He was feeling very zen indeed.

He had never been a particularly tactile person. In fact, it had taken him a long while to become comfortable with the physical affection that Courfeyrac bestows upon every single one of his friends. And yet, as he laid there in The Sanctuary with his head in Grantaire's lap, fingers being gently carded through his hair, Enjolras wasn’t sure he’d ever been more comfortable in his entire life.

He was content.

The happy atmosphere surrounded their little cove of trees in a seemingly impenetrable bubble as Musichetta and Bossuet helped their boyfriend revise for a chemistry test next period, Enjolras and Grantaire simply enjoyed each other’s company, and Éponine, Jehan and Bahorel watched a John Mulaney comedy special on Netflix on Éponine’s old, falling apart laptop. Truth be told, they were all happy.

Too bad that bubble was about to be popped by one careless comment from Grantaire.

“All of my stuff is still at my dad’s,” he thought out loud. As though simultaneously pulled from their trains of thought, everyone stopped what they were doing. Musichetta shut her textbook, Jehan paused the video, and Enjolras sat up, watching Grantaire with a furrowed brow. Seeing as everyone else seemed to have lost the ability to talk, Éponine was the one to speak up first.

“Alright. What do you want us to do about it, then?”

Sighing as though he was trying to come up with a shopping list on the spot, Grantaire thought for a moment. “Well," he said eventually, "I need to go and get it. Sooner rather than later preferably.” His tone was casual and any other group of friends may have chuckled at his rather indifferent words, but these people knew Grantaire. They knew him better than anyone else on the face of the earth and they could tell that, behind his jokes and behind his can't-be-arsed attitude, he was scared. Scared of his father and scared of going back to the house where he experienced the very worst of his life. And he knew they understood because of course, they did, but, nevertheless, he persisted with his joking tone. “Because I love this jumper,” he continued, picking it his sleeves anxiously yet his voice so relentlessly indifferent, “but there’s only so long you can wear the same item of clothing before it has to undergo industrial sterilisation. Plus there’s still all my art stuff that I'm gonna need eventually so…”

“I’ll go with you,” Éponine cut in without a moment's hesitation, done with listening to her best friend try – and fail – to sound indifferent about something that undeniably sucks ass.

Enjolras's face hardened with resolution. "Me too." 

Almost immediately, Grantaire was vehemently shaking his head. No, he was not having Enjolras potentially be put in danger. Éponine? She can handle it; she has seen worse things in this world than potentially running into Grantaire’s father. But, Enjolras? Grantaire isn’t so sure.

It's not that he doesn't trust Enjolras or, really, even that he thinks he's naive, but this? This is a whole other level intense that Grantaire is almost certain he isn't ready for. Or, maybe, Grantaire's not ready to see Enjolras in that situation. Either way, Enjolras is staying behind and that's that. 

Lucky for Grantaire, he has a pretty good best friend.

Éponine was shaking her head with all of the authority she possessed and Enjolras knew almost instantly that he wouldn't be going. “We need you watching Gav, we're not leaving him on his own. The last time we left him to his own devices in the house, he managed to set soup on fire." Though she received only baffled looks in response, she had no answer to give them, simply holding up her hands and saying, "Hey, I don’t know how he did it either!”

And then the conversation was over, ending with Enjolras begrudgingly agreeing, despite having exactly zero experience with babysitting. Though it was a small consolation, it genuinely did make him feel a little bit better to know that he would be able to help, even if he couldn't be on the front lines, as it were. He knew that Grantaire wanted to exclude him. He wasn’t offended by it; he knew that he was only trying to protect him, but he still wanted to help them do it. Getting Grantaire’s stuff back was important. It meant that he was no longer attached or indebted to his father in any way.

It would give him a true new beginning and Enjolras didn’t want to be excluded from it.

***

“So, what’s the plan?” Enjolras had waited throughout the rest of the school day to find out the minutiae of the plan and now that he loitering in the Thénardier's hallway he couldn't wait another second. He had to know.

“Well,” Grantaire began, “every Monday and Tuesday he leaves the house at about six to go to the dogs. He won’t be back until about half-one in the morning, so I was thinking we could borrow Rel’s van and sneak in through the bathroom window at about ten-past, get my stuff and get out before he gets back.”

There were a lot of variables in that plan.

An unpleasant amount of variables.

Enjolras didn’t like it. Nope. Not. One. Bit.

The idea that Grantaire would sneak back into the home of his abuser to get his stuff? Not a pleasant thought. And, yes, he knew that it was something that _had _to happen, but that doesn’t mean that he should be happy about it.

“But, what if he doesn’t go tonight?”

Grantaire groaned a little exasperatedly and Enjolras couldn't help but think that he was rather absurdly calm about this whole thing. “Apollo,” he said in a soothing tone, looking him right in the eye and rubbing comforting circles on his arms, “Every single Monday and Tuesday night without fail _for thirteen years_. He’s not just suddenly going to think ‘huh, I don’t think I’ll go tonight’. Trust me. We’ll be fine.” He trusted Grantaire, of course, he did, but that didn’t stop him worrying. Grantaire seemed to sense this and so ploughed forwards in his reassurance. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll be in there alone. ‘Ponine’ll be with me every step of the way.”

"Yeah,” Éponine cut in with a grin like the Cheshire cat, “Don’t worry, chief, I’ll bring your boyfriend back in one piece.”

Enjolras scowled but didn’t make any effort to argue further, instead, reserving his anxieties to picking at his nails. Okay, well, not entirely reserving them to that.

“At least go through the schedule one more time. Please?” Enjolras would be the first to admit that he was getting desperate. He just didn’t like it, okay?

Grantaire sighed once more. Well, he’d always dreamed of Enjolras caring about him enough to be worried over him so, he’s not going to complain about it now!

“He leaves for the dogs at six and is there until they kick him out at ten, then he goes next door to Napoleon’s and goes on the slot machines until midnight. He stumbles home at some time around half-one. We’ll be back to pick up Gav by nine, okay?”

“If you’re not going to be back by nine, text me. Otherwise, if you’re not back by nine-fifteen I’m coming round, got it?” Enjolras’s usual stern, commanding tone was back and thinly veiling his worries. Has he mentioned that he doesn't like it? Because he doesn't!

Grantaire could see right through his managerial tone and pulled him in for a tight, comforting hug.

“We’ll be okay,” he said into his boyfriend’s shoulder, “And, if we’re in trouble, I promise that you will be the first person I call.” He punctuated his promise with a soft kiss on Enjolras’s lips that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end in the best way.

As Grantaire pulled away, the tips of Enjolras’s ears were considerably pinker than they had been moments before, but, overall, he was feeling minutely better about this ‘heist’ – as Gavroche had been calling it – than he had been before.

“Not that I don’t love your nauseatingly adorable public displays of affection, but we really should be getting going, R,” she reminded the lovesick weirdos she had somehow developed friendships with, glancing at her cracked watch.

“Right,” Grantaire acknowledged, giving Enjolras one more peck on the lips before joining his best friend at the door.

“You’re okay with watching him, right?” Éponine asked him. Enjolras, to be honest, seemed a little lost with the whole babysitting thing and was beginning to shoot anxious looks across the room to where Gavroche was plugged into his phone, pop-punk quietly leaking out of the cheap headphones.

“Of course. I’m just a little unfamiliar with the territory is all.”

“Don’t worry. Gav idolises you. If he tries to talk to you, just answer honestly. Seriously, he holds the serious delusion that everything that falls out of your face in pure gold,” she reassured him before turning and leaving out the front door, leaving Enjolras somewhat embarrassed in her wake and dragging Grantaire behind her.

Once they were settled in the van that Bahorel had leant them for Moving Day, as he had cheerfully called it, Grantaire turned to Éponine with the same expression on his face that she had just seen on Enjolras a minute before.

“What?” she asked, fully prepared to have to launch into a pep talk about how it would be fine and that his dad won’t be there.

The answer she got was not the one she was expecting. 

“He’ll be okay, won’t he? Enjolras I mean. It’s just, I love the kid, but Gav can be a lot at times.”

“Not you too!” she exclaimed, finally letting her exasperation get the better of her, “Look, you’ve seen Gav around Enjolras before. He’s damn near pious! He practically worships the guy..." she trailed off, knowing what Grantaire needed to hear. "He’ll be okay.”

Grantaire didn’t look fully convinced.

“And so will you,” she added, the everpresent stubbornness in her face rearing up, concrete and resolute. Suddenly, in a rare display of Éponine’s affection, she lunged forward and pulled him into a tight hug.

“You know I’ve got your back, right?”

“I’ll be on your six, ‘Ponine. Always.”

“Damn right, you will,” she said, pulling away and leaning back into the driver’s seat with a practised certainty. Despite it being Bahorel’s van, he couldn’t drive it. In fact, Éponine was the only one in the entire group with a valid driver’s licence. So, though the van wasn’t hers, the seat and mirrors, hell even the damn air conditioning, were all to her specifications. If Bahorel were to sit in the driver’s seat, his knees would likely be at his chin the moment he sat down, though that would probably be true of any car, the poor giant.

Starting the engine, Éponine felt the familiar hum all around her and pulled away from the curb confidently, very much in her comfort zone.

Grantaire, on the other hand, still had his reservations about the ‘heist’.

His head was practically swimming with thoughts of _‘what if he is there?’ _and _‘what if it goes wrong?’ _and, worst of all, _‘what if you’re putting Ponine in danger?’_

After everything that he said to Enjolras about Éponine being able to handle herself, even though logically he knew that she could, Grantaire was reluctant to admit it, but he was _scared._

***

At the back of Grantaire’s childhood house, there is an old, disused road. Disused only because it is more pothole than road these days. It’s also more of a rat run than it is a road. Only people who are desperate, stupid, or trying to be sneaky use that glorified pathway.

I’m sure it will be no surprise to anyone that this was the stretch of street that Éponine parked the van on.

From there, it was easy enough to get into the back garden. Sure, the gaps in the fence were a little trickier to get through than they had been when they were twelve, but _C’est la vie. _As always, the top part of the window in the bathroom had been left ajar. It wasn’t quite wide enough for Grantaire to get through, but it was just about enough for Éponine to wiggle her way through (with a leg-up from Grantaire) without a crowbar needing to be summoned to pry her out of it.

“R?” came a voice from the other side of the garden fence as Grantaire waited for Éponine to claw the other part of the window open. Grantaire frowned slightly. Even though the voice was friendly – if a tad curious for his liking – getting spotted at the house by anyone hadn’t been a part of the plan. He wracked his brains for who might be trying to talk to him while he was doing something almost certainly illegal and came up will a name almost immediately.

“Montparnasse?”

Grantaire’s shoulders slumped in relief as a dark-haired head popped up over the fence from the other side. This was surprisingly okay. If it had been anyone else from this neighbourhood, he would have maintained his scepticism, but this is Montparnasse we’re talking about. Now, Montparnasse is many things: a petty-thief, part-time drug dealer, and full-time flirtatious asshole, but a snitch he is not. He also happens to be Grantaire’s only friend outside of Les Amis, which has to count for something.

“Sneaking in, are we?” he asked with a cheeky smirk.

“For the last time.”

“Oh? Do tell, _mon cherie.” _

“The asshole that calls himself my father kicked me out. For good this time.” A look of sympathy flashed across his friend’s face. Before they died a couple of years before and he inherited the house, Montparnasse’s parents used to kick him out all the time. Whether it was because of the drugs he brought home, or the people he brought home, or whether they were just sick of his face, they never seemed to want him around.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice more sincere than Grantaire had probably ever heard it, “Hey, if it’s any consolation,” he continued, his usual mischievous smile back on his face, “living on your own ain’t so bad. You get used to it after a while.”

“Well, I won’t have to. I’m living with Ponine now.”

“Oooh,” he said in a sing-songy voice, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Ew, dude! She’s basically my sister!” Grantaire exclaimed, still endeavouring to keep his voice down to avoid drawing any unwanted attention from nosy neighbours. Well, _nosier _neighbours.

“Yeah, but she’s not, though, is she?”

“Ugh,” Grantaire said, shaking unwanted thoughts out of his head, “Remind me how I was ever drunk enough to sleep with you.”

“You were sober, and you know it.”

“How old was I?”

“It was the night before your sixteenth birthday. Said it was one last act of sexual rebellion until you were of legal age and everything became legal and boring.”

“Ah. Yeah, I was most definitely not sober. Sorry to break it to you.”

Grantaire had spent the majority of his evenings when he was fifteen and sixteen as drunk as he could possibly get. _Not _a healthy way to live, he knew that. More importantly, though, his friends knew that. More specifically, Éponine, Bahorel, and Jehan knew that and, suffice to say, they were _not _happy. The agreement that they had come to – well, _agreement_ might be an exaggeration, more a promise that Grantaire had been made to make under threat of bodily harm – was that Grantaire could still drink, but never enough for him to black-out and never in the morning before school or the night before an exam. Reasonable terms, yes? His friends thought so and, over time, Grantaire had come to agree.

“You wound me, R. You wound me.” Grantaire shrugged uncaringly but smiled nonetheless. It had been a while since he’d had a chance to have a conversation with Montparnasse and, frankly, he had missed their easy repertoire and cheeky banter. “What am I supposed to do in this neighbourhood now that the only interesting person has moved out?”

“Die of boredom, probably,” Grantaire shot back just as Éponine managed to pull the window open. “Anyway,” he continued, halfway through the window, “text me if anything cool happens. I’d hate to miss the one interesting thing to happen around here because I moved out right before it happened.”

“Will do, _mon cherie. _Have fun with your breaking and entering, you criminals.” And, with that, Montparnasse disappeared below the top of the fence once again.

Once she had managed to squeeze her way into the rather tiny bathroom, it was time for Éponine to grapple with the rusted latch holding the larger part of the window closed. Eventually, having had to lever it open with the aid of the end of Grantaire’s father’s toothbrush, she managed to push the window open wide and pull Grantaire through it. Much like the fence, she found that the process of hauling her best friend through the gap in the open window was much harder now that they were both older. To be completely fair to Éponine and Grantaire, neither of them had had to sneak their way back into this house since they were fourteen and trying to get in from a party – Montparnasse’s parties were rather legendary to the angsty teens of St Michel and the surrounding area – without enraging Grantaire’s father with the sounds, and therefore reminders, of their existence.

“That was intere-“ he began but was cut-off by Éponine shushing him violently, backing away from the window she had just wrenched shut.

_‘Listen!’ _she mouthed, pointing towards the bathroom door with wide eyes.

Grantaire could hear the sound of some sporting event blaring from the TV in the living room. With some amount of hope in his heart, he hoped that maybe his father had just forgotten to turn it off. That hope, however, was immediately shattered by the sound for cutlery clinking against a plate and a rather large belch. If he hadn’t been absolutely terrified, Grantaire almost certainly would have laughed at that. But he was, in fact, utterly petrified and it’s a little hard to laugh at the funny things in life when your worst-case-scenario has just been made reality. 

The moment he heard that otherwise comical sound, his mouth went dry, his palms began to sweat, and the hair on his neck began to stand on end in the very worst way. Why? You might ask. The answer is simple and terrible.

Because his father was still inside the house.


	2. Enjolras's Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras wrangles babysitting for the first time and Grantaire and Éponine wrangle with a far less common teenage problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a strong suspicion that the chapter lengths for part two are going to be somewhat erratic. For that, I can only apologise in anticipation. This chapter is unlikely to be the longest, but I doubt very much that they will get any shorter than the first chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It had only been about fifteen minutes since Grantaire and Éponine had left, but that didn’t do anything to allay Enjolras’s worries that something would – or had already, for that matter – gone wrong.

It certainly didn’t help that they seemed to have overestimated the amount of oversight that Gavroche needed. As far as Enjolras could tell, the tween was content to sit on the sofa and listen to music on his headphones too loud. Thus, Enjolras had absolutely nothing to distract himself with.

Would it be rude for him to turn on the TV? Probably. It seemed like the kind of thing his very uptight grandmother wouldn’t tolerate. Perhaps that wasn’t the best way for Enjolras to gage how impolite things are given that most things make her tut like a 40-year-old woman named Karen in an understaffed Nando’s. But, just to be safe, he decided against it. It certainly didn’t help that he was woefully inexperienced in taking care of kids. He’s an only child, okay? It had never been a subject that his lack of knowledge of had caused him frequent problems! At the very worst, it vaguely inconvenienced every so often when he was somewhere like the library and a stressed-out mother would ask him to briefly watch her demonic children while she popped to the toilet for two minutes. No, he’d never even babysat. He had never needed to! He was never short of money as his parents would just throw a few tenners at him whenever he asked and it had honestly never occurred to him that babysitting would be the kind of thing he would enjoy! So, Enjolras had spent almost the entirety of his life up to that point completely free of the presence of children, which was imminently becoming a problem.

For another couple of minutes, Enjolras marinated in his anxieties, his leg bouncing up and down like he was trying to conduct a performance of _The Flight of the Bumblebee _with it and his fingers tapping in a way that reminded him somewhat of an over-excited Courfeyrac, well, that is, if Courfeyrac was full of worry and concern instead of Red Bull and rainbows.

Finally, some awful, vengeful god must have taken pity on Enjolras’s helpless state as Gavroche suddenly paused his music and unplugged himself from his headphones and turned to face him.

“Dude, can you, like, chill a bit, please?”

“Sorry?” Enjolras responded, perplexed at this sudden – what even was this? Was it a criticism? It didn’t feel like a criticism exactly, but it certainly wasn’t a complement!

“You look like you’re either going to have a mental breakdown or bust into flames! And, frankly, neither is particularly a good option so, and I repeat, chill a bit, dude.”

“Oh,” was all Enjolras managed to say as he tried his best to settle further back onto the couch in an effort to _‘chill a bit’. _

“You’ve never babysat before, have you?” Gavroche had a small smile on his face as he asked that. Not a plotting smirk or a mischievous, vindictive grin, though. Just a genuinely curious smile that reminded him slightly of the way Grantaire would look when he would listen to Combeferre talk passionately about moths or Cosette lecture him about how Lydia Bennet did _not _deserve to be trapped with Wickham for the rest of her life because of one mistake she made when she was young (Enjolras has never read Pride and Prejudice, but agrees with this point of view on principal).

“Is it that obvious?” he asked somewhat sheepishly, a bashful smile creeping onto his face as he relaxed a little; Gavroche wasn’t exactly the demonic creatures he’d briefly minded in the fantasy section of the library before. Gavroche laughed a little, clearly Enjolras’s incompetence and inexperience were, quite literally, laughable.

“Can I offer you some advice, dude?” He didn’t wait for a response before he continued. “Don’t wait for me to tell you that it’s okay to turn on the TV. I’m thirteen and you’re babysitting me; you’re in charge. If you want to watch the TV, watch the fucking TV, dude.”

“Thanks,” he replied sincerely. As stupid as it may sound, Enjolras was glad for the reality check. It kind of brought him back to reality from the horrifying worst-case scenario that he had created in his mind.

Gavroche simply nodded in response and unpaused his music. As the music was unpaused before he put the earbuds back in, Enjolras was able to hear the lyrics pouring from the cheap and leaky headphones with the kind of clarity that made him worry slightly for the well-being of Gavroche’s eardrums. The lyrics, he found, were rather familiar to him. This was surprising to Enjolras only because, in general, he barely knew any songs that had words in them. He had never been able to understand why some people put so much value in music. To him, the music he had heard on the radio was truly uninspiring, said nothing of note and just filled the silence until the people listening to it had ha a chance to think about something to say. Enjolras had had a rather sheltered upbringing, everything he would be exposed to was screened before he was allowed to get close to it. TV, movies, food, even friends. Certainly music. The most raunchy or otherwise revolutionary song that he had managed to hear during the first decade of his life was _I Kiss a Girl _by Katy Perry at a school disco in year four. He had loved it and had come home from the disco raving about how it was the best song he had ever heard, at which point his father had drafted a strongly worded letter to the school administration about exposing children to _“smut”. _

After that, Enjolras had been forbidden by his father to ever go to one of the school discos again.

And, thus, music had been sort of put on the back-burner for the better part of a decade for Enjolras. So, imagine, if you will, his surprise when the punky and angry lyrics pouring from Gavroche’s headphones had a familiarity to them, though Enjolras had no idea how.

“Wait!” he exclaimed at the thirteen-year-old suddenly before he put in the headphones and the familiarity was gone. Gavroche looked at him expectantly. “Uh,” he continued dumbly, “Could you maybe put that song on your phone speaker?”

“Sure.”

Well maybe I’m the faggot America

I’m not a part of a redneck agenda

Now everybody do the propaganda

And sing along to the age of paranoia

They listened to the song in silence for a moment or two before Enjolras just had to ask.

“What is this song? I swear I’ve heard it somewhere before.” A smile was spreading over his face. Screw _I Kiss a Girl. _This might be the best song that Enjolras had ever heard.

“I’d be more surprised if you _hadn’t_ heard it before. It was one of the biggest songs of the mid-2000s.” Gavroche took one look at the rather blank, but ecstatic expression on Enjolras’s face and seemed to make a choice. “Okay,” he continued, putting his phone – which was still playing music – down beside him and turning to face Enjolras head-on, “Seeing as punk and all of its sub-genres seems to have somehow missed you entirely, I, Gavroche I-don’t-have-a-middle-name Thénardier, will be the one to educate you.”

“Uh… Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Okay, so I’m only going to talk about punk rock and two sub-genres because I am frankly too lazy to try and explain everything else.” He looked at Enjolras expectantly, as through waiting for some kind of response, be that agreement or impassioned arguing about a subject he had no knowledge in. In a miniature panic, Enjolras simply nodded, but that seemed to be enough for Gavroche who just continued his lecture with undeniable gusto.

He went on about the origins of punk music and the punk movement as a whole and how that developed and splintered off into all of the sub-genres that exist now. Enjolras threw himself into learning about how emo and pop-punk are different and how bands like Green Day and My Chemical Romance challenge – _challenged _in the latter’s case – stereotypes associated with the kind of music that they play. Like, My Chemical Romance making music that spoke to the people who struggle to get out of bed every day and Green Day combating how male dominated their industry is by choosing female-only opening acts during their most-recent tour (after hearing that fact about Green Day, Enjolras decided that they were his favourite).

Throughout the lecture, though, Enjolras was struck by how unworried Gavroche seemed about Éponine and Grantaire’s current whereabouts. How could he be so “chill” about it?!

Eventually, curiosity got the better of him.

“Okay, I give up!” he exclaimed suddenly as Gavroche was trying to explain the war of Blur and Oasis.

“It’s really not that complicated…”

“No, not about that. I just don’t get how you can be so calm right now. Your family is out doing something objectively dangerous and you’re not completely freaking out! How?!” Enjolras threw his hands up in frustration while Gavroche simply smiled slightly. Was there something obvious that he was missing?

“I’m not worried because they’ve both been in more dangerous situations before and, besides, this isn’t even the first time they’ve had to break into somewhere to retrieve their own property!”

‘Gaping like a fish’ would probably be the most apt description for what Enjolras’s mouth did then.

“What do you mean?” He was rather proud of himself for not shrieking the question at the poor thirteen-year-old.

“Well, when they were in year nine, Mr Tholomyes, you know that asshole? He confiscated Ép’s phone – wrongfully I might add, it’s not like she was on it during a lesson or anything – and he refused to give it back at the end of the day like he was supposed to and insisted that Mum or Dad go down to the school and get it for her. Well, obviously she couldn’t agree to that, so Tholomyes said that she could get it on Monday, but she needed it then because all of her money and her bus pass was in the case and Dad was insisting that she pay him for her new school shoes – even though she literally went through the soles of her last pair she had them so long – and it’s not like she could just not pay him. She tried to tell Tholomyes that, but the asshole refused to listen to her and locked the phone in his desk.

“Anyway, that night she slept over at R’s and on Saturday they broke into the school and got her phone back. My point is, what they’re doing now isn’t even remotely uncharted waters for them. Why? Are you worried?”

Enjolras simply nodded, lost for words. He felt slightly guilty for doubting that Grantaire and Éponine knew what they were doing, but that did almost nothing to allay the worry seeping through his veins. It was the utter helplessness he felt that scared him the most; two of the people he loves most in the world could be in danger right at that very moment and he would be none the wiser.

Right at that very moment.

***

If one was able to see fear like one can see coloured lights and strobe effects in the air, the small bathroom where Éponine and Grantaire were panicking would look like a fucking Pink Floyd concert. 

“What do we do?!” Grantaire hissed, trying with every fibre of his being to not have a mental breakdown; it would be most inconvenient should he give in to the panic threatening to overcome him at that moment. Éponine shushed him quietly and placed her hand firmly over his mouth for good measure.

Then, as if the situation couldn’t get any worse, they heard the steady thumping of footsteps exiting the living room and tramping slowly in the general direction of the bathroom.

The bathroom.

The bathroom they were currently cowering in.

That bathroom.

“Okay, uh, well… we obviously can’t get out of the window in time. It would take way too long and you practically need a fucking crowbar to get it open. So, where else is there?” The footsteps were looming closer every second and yet Éponine somehow had the level of serenity and level of mental processing left required to make logical and sound decisions.

How she maintained this composure, Grantaire would never know.

He would never be able to understand how she could remain so relatively calm and collected in this situation. Next to her, Grantaire was practically a blubbering mess, cowering on the floor, waiting for someone to come and rescue him. This was his worst-case scenario and he wasn’t even slightly prepared for it.

Enjolras popped into his mind – as he often did – and he was struck by how glad he was that he wasn’t there with them. This was a new experience for Grantaire. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been glad of Enjolras’s absence, quite the opposite, in fact. On the few days that he had been off school during the period of thirteen years since they had met, for whatever reason, Grantaire had felt as though something integral was missing from the school. As though someone had snuck in during the night and taken the entire arts department away and everyone was just supposed to act like it was okay. The days felt duller and every class they shared seemed like a funeral without the undeniable passion that Enjolras brought to every lesson. And, yet, as Grantaire stood there in silence, hunched over in the bathroom of his childhood house, he had never felt so relieved at the lack of Enjolras’s presence.

Any moment in his life where Enjolras’s safety was a guaranteed certainty was a good moment to Grantaire.

“The cupboard!” she exclaimed quietly, summoning Grantaire’s attention back to the situation at hand. Without asking for permission – there was no time – she grabbed his hand and yanked him out of the bathroom and into the hallway of doom. She floundered somewhat for a moment; it took a second for her to orient herself with her surroundings, but then Grantaire found himself being dragged a metre down the hallway into a musty cupboard that he hadn’t opened to door of for oh such a long time.

A few seconds of heavy panting went by before Éponine placed a hand over Grantaire’s mouth once again. This time, though, she covered her own mouth, muffling her breathing too. 

An odd shuffling, stomping sound trampled past the closed door and Grantaire could have sworn that, in that moment, he forgot how to breathe.

Right then, if a hacking cough and the bathroom door slamming shut were good sounds to them, the unmistakable splashing noise of the shower turning on was music to their ears.

Their sighs of relief were both simultaneous and instantaneous.

Slumping against the shelves behind her, Éponine felt the corner of a box press into her hip and upon looking down felt a stab of pain for Grantaire. So, that’s why he never let anyone into this cupboard.

Grantaire never talked about his family life much. It’s understandable why he wouldn’t, given the absolutely despicable person that his father was. It was a bleak situation through and through. Over the many, many years that she had known him, Éponine had only learnt about the rest of his family in snippets. Once, when they were about twelve, he mentioned that his mother had left them a handful of years previously. Given that Éponine had known Grantaire since they were practically babies, she had met his mother, she had seen her at the door when she was asking if Grantaire could come out and play, she had seen her drinking a gin and tonic in the garden from her bedroom window. And, yet, five years had passed where she hadn’t been there and Éponine hadn’t noticed. Grantaire didn’t mention it and so she didn’t think there was a problem.

Over time she had learnt that just because Grantaire doesn’t say that everything feels like – or _is_ – crumbling around him, doesn’t mean that he isn’t huddled under a metaphorical desk, hoping that shrapnel doesn’t fall on his head.

The most information she ever managed to get out of him regarding his family was when they were around fourteen years old. Most fourteen-year-olds’ biggest worries or problems revolve around acne, crushes, and/ or (in the case of Les Amis) being angry about a corrupt governmental system that is actively working to profit from the suffering of its most vulnerable citizens. You know, casual teen stuff. One day, Grantaire had shown up to her house out of the blue. A not too unusual occurrence, that is until you realise that he went to the front door when her parents’ cars were clearly visible in the drive. Grantaire hates the Thénardier parents. _Hates _them. More than that, though, he’s afraid of them and what they are capable of. So, for him to go to the front door and knock on it with no regard for the fact that Éponine’s parents are home, that must mean something was terribly wrong.

And, indeed, something _was_ terribly wrong.

His aunt had died.

Not much point to beat around the bush, really. She died. The only member of his family who ever seemed to show him any sort of love had died.

In ABC meetings, there is a sort of running gag that Jehan has taken Gavroche under their wing and that they have been training him in mindreading. The truth is, though, that Gavroche is, and always has been, a sort of emotional litmus paper. If one of Les Amis is not okay, Gavroche knows. No, he won’t go all out in an effort to make them feel better, but a reassuring cheeky smile here and a nicked snickerz slipped into a pocket there can make all the difference in the world.

So, when Grantaire showed up unannounced on their doorstep, clearly devastated at something, Gavroche immediately pulled him downwards into a hug. It is a testament to how much of his life Grantaire had spent with Éponine and Gavroche that, when he was sadder than either of them had ever seen, Gavroche knew that, hey, maybe he wouldn’t be able to fix this with a snickerz, but Grantaire had always liked magic stars better and he was going to be damned if he didn’t try anyway. With a sharing packet in hand, Grantaire was led to Éponine’s room where he spilled his guts. Every detail about the kind of person his aunt was and how she died came to light and the evening ended with Grantaire cuddled into Éponine’s side on her bed, in a slightly damp patch made of tears and – probably – snot.

“Is this your aunt’s stuff?” she asked, gesturing all around the small cupboard to all of the boxes full of the kind of nick-nacks that can only be collected over a lifetime.

Grantaire suddenly found that he didn’t have it in him to speak and so simply nodded solemnly.

A minute or two passed before either of them made any kind of move to do or saying anything after that. Surprisingly, it was Grantaire who finally made a move.

“Right,” he whispered with a certain air of spontaneous confidence about him as he rested his hand on the doorknob, “I have to go get some things, I’ll be back before he gets out of the shower.”

“Wait, R!” Éponine exclaimed rather loudly before remembering where they were and quieting herself, “You can’t! We don’t know how much time—”

Grantaire cut her off by opening the door resolutely and stepping out.

***

It should be made extremely clear from the very beginning. _Crocodile Dundee _was neither Gavroche nor Enjolras’s first choice of movie. Yet, with the WiFi in the Thénardier household either not working or simply non-existent, they had been forced to choose a movie based on the DVD collection lying around. It had taken them ten minutes to find all of the DVDs and, when they did, they wished they’d just given up before they’d begun. Frankly, it’s a miracle they didn’t give up after they found the fourth copy of _Crocodile Dundee _in a row.

So, that was how they ended up watching _Crocodile Dundee. _Well, some form of _Crocodile Dundee, _in every copy they tried the scenes were out of order. This confused Gavroche immensely who hadn’t seen the movie before, but Enjolras assured him he wasn’t missing much.

Enjolras, having zoned-out almost completely as the film droned on in the background, was brought crashing back down to earth as Gavroche exclaimed shrilly.

“What the fuck?! He can’t just do that! And the others are cheering him?! That’s sexual assault fuck-o’s!”

Ah. The scene with the drag queen in the bar.

Enjolras wasn’t sure he’d ever been prouder of another person in his life.

Not even he had been so vocal about his distaste for the obvious sexual assault in that scene! To be completely fair to him, though, Enjolras would have been incredibly vocal had he not been so completely lost for words at the blatant transphobia and sexual assault. Seriously, no amount of _‘Oh, but it was another time!’ _could make that shit okay.

The moment Enjolras heard Gavroche so utterly furious about the flagrant injustice on screen was the moment that Enjolras decided that maybe kids weren’t so bad. Well, at least not this one.

***

Grantaire returned to the cupboard just as they heard the shower turn off. Talk about cutting it a bit fine; Éponine would have lectured him about it were it not a frightfully stupid thing to do. She wanted to ask him what was so important that he had to risk everything to go and get it, but, again, the necessity for silence, plus, going by the way he was holding whatever it was close to his stomach protectively, almost curling around it, Grantaire wouldn’t tell anyone what it was until he’s completely ready. Not even Éponine would be an exception.

The relative darkness of the cupboard compared to the rest of the house felt like pitch-black as Grantaire stepped back inside with his spoils. He thanked whatever deities that there were – existent or not – for the stupidity of his father. Really, what kind of moron leaves the money he stole from his son around where said son can easily take it back?

That’s right. Grantaire risked his life for money.

Not really his usual MO, he would be the first one to admit it; he’s no Montparnasse in that department, but, right then, in the murky darkness of a cupboard filled with his beloved dead aunt’s possessions, Grantaire was formulating a plan. A good plan. A potentially brilliant plan, if he might say so himself. He would tell Éponine eventually, he decided, but she couldn’t know, yet. Not until things were more concrete.

It was nearing seven, according to Éponine’s phone, when they heard Grantaire’s father slouch past.

Nearly an hour behind schedule.

It would be a pretty large understatement to say that Éponine didn’t like this. At the beginning of the night, she had been confident about the whole plan. You see, people are predictable. That is a fact of reality that Éponine had partially based her entire world view on. It comforted her somewhat to think that everything can be predicted when one has the right data about a person but, Grantaire’s father? He was going off piste. He was being unpredictable, and _she didn’t like it. _

The delay dragged on for another hour.

Two hours behind schedule.

The two friends tried to whisper amongst themselves to pass the time, but it seemed that every time they tried, they would hear footsteps thumping in their direction and would have to cower in silence once more.

Just as Grantaire was beginning to wonder whether they would be stuck in there until the morning, they heard three wonderful noises in succession.

  1. The pleasant jingling of a bunch of keys.
  2. The distinctive catch and thunk noises of the front door opening and shutting.
  3. The beautiful sound of an old, battered engine spluttering to life.

They were safe again. Relatively speaking.

As quickly as they could without completely cocking everything up, Grantaire and Éponine began to pack everything into boxes, taking turns to take three boxes – two if they were especially heavy or four if they were lighter – at a time to the van out back. Despite their awfully late start, Grantaire was proud to say that they got about half the room completely packed, organised and in the van in just over an hour. That may not seem _that _impressive, but Grantaire really did have a lot of crap in his room. Very much like his aunt, he tends to collect things and, well, when one collects things as he does, miscellaneous crap does tend to accumulate over the years. That’s how Grantaire liked to explain the clutter.

Éponine just called him a hoarder.

Ah, well. To each their own.

Éponine has always lived her life on a schedule. Well, not always¹, but, since she was about fifteen, she has made sure to plan everything in her life to the best of her ability. It helps her to keep in control what she can, even when everything around her feels like it has descended into chaos. That being said, it may shock you to learn that, since Éponine got a handle on her life – sort of – she hasn’t maintained her ability for dealing with the chaos that tended to surround her before. Now, if you catch her on a bad day, even the mildest of chaos can completely throw her off. Seriously, one should never take Éponine to Ikea if one is not prepared to stick to the one-way system religiously.

Luckily, their little breaking and entering extravaganza had caught Éponine on a relatively good day. Still, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t put her off her stride somewhat.

This is why it wasn’t until Grantaire pulled her, by the wrist urgently, underneath the bed that she realised something was wrong.

She hadn’t heard the sound of a car pulling up outside.

She hadn’t even heard the front door practically bursting off its hinges.

He was back.

¹It took a nasty shock in the form of some truly terrible mock GCSE results to shock her into getting herself sorted. No revision and a level of apathy towards learning that astounded and worried even Grantaire is a pretty bad combination when one is facing important exams. In Éponine’s defence, the importance of school had never been something that her parents had impressed into her; they had just let her be, checking in every so often to collect money for new shoes or uniform. They didn’t care. Children learn about the world by watching their parents. If a child sees their parents reading, they will read. If a child sees their parents baking, they will bake. If a child never sees their parents try to better themselves or put any stock whatsoever into learning, neither will the child. They didn’t care, so she didn’t care. That was, until a truly terrible set of grades shocked her back down to earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter may be a day or two late as I am on holiday this week until Friday and I really don't know how much free time I'll have to write the next one. Especially given that it is likely to be a similar length - if not longer - to this one and, as much as I wish they would, 5000 words don't just happen (God, I wish they would)! I am a slow typer and I have a maximum of two brain cells at one time; cut me some slack! Anyway, if it is, in fact, the case that the next chapter will be late, I apologise sincerely. Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Any comments and/or Kudos you might have are greatly appreciated!


	3. Éponine Hates Bowling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't be one of my fics without me being genuinely surprised that I managed to get out a chapter in time for the deadline I set. Seriously, though, no one is more shocked that I managed to get it done - what with me being on holiday this week - than me!
> 
> Just a quick warning: this chapter does contain references to child abuse, neglect, and death. Nothing too graphic, at least not in my opinion, but do continue at your own risk.
> 
> Enjoy!

It was exceedingly odd that Éponine hadn’t processed the threat of imminent danger that Grantaire’s father returning to the house posed. It wasn’t as though she just hadn’t heard the car pull up. She had. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had registered the sound of the car doors closing near the front of the house, but she had just written it off.

Perhaps it was something to do with not getting enough sleep, or perhaps getting too much coffee.

Either way, Éponine was off her game and that was something that she couldn’t afford. So, when Grantaire grabbed her by the wrist and hauled the both of them underneath his childhood bed, she made it a point to notice everything. Every bit of dirt and grime and clutter the underside of the bed had to offer.

She regretted that choice immediately.

Not because it was worse than she had expected. Quite the opposite, actually.

Underneath the bed, the floor was spotless.

As she took in the immaculate state of the floor, she was all of a sudden filled to the brim with inexplicable emotion, somewhat akin to grief. It was silly, really, and she knew it, but somehow the spotless area made her immensely sad. Sad for Grantaire and the horrible childhood he had behind closed doors and sad for herself and her own bed.

It reminded her of her own childhood; a childhood spent keeping everything in perfect order for fear of incurring the wrath of one or both of her parents.

It reminded her of pried up floorboards and jewellery boxes filled with coins, a pittance she managed to keep for herself, away from her parents.

It reminded her that she didn’t have a childhood. That she never will.

It reminded her of everything she was trying her damnedest to provide for Gavroche.

A teenager should have a messy bedroom.

She didn’t.

Grantaire didn’t.

A teenager shouldn’t under any circumstances feel unsafe or uncomfortable in their home. They shouldn’t be afraid to make a mess in their _own_ _room_. In Éponine’s opinion, clutter makes a house a home. It makes it looked lived in, because, without people, a house is just a house.

Despite the grief creeping through her chest, Éponine couldn’t help but let a smile tug at the corner of her mouth as she remembered. Gavroche’s room was a pigsty. Really, you could barely see the floor. If it hadn’t been for their current situation, Éponine would have practically giggled with glee.

As it was, they were in their current situation – as one tends to be – and, therefore, the fear of Grantaire’s father momentarily outweighed the joy she felt upon thinking about Gavroche’s swamp of a bedroom.

As they huddled together, under the bed, scared for their lives. she understood exactly why Grantaire had never made a mess under his bed. It wasn’t the same reason she hadn’t made a mess under her own. No.

Grantaire wasn’t afraid of angering his father with the mess under his bed; his father didn’t care.

It was in case of this situation.

In case he had to hide underneath it while his, presumably drunken, father rampaged around the house, looking for something to hit.

And it broke her heart, all thoughts of mess and cleanliness vanishing from her thoughts as she desperately listened for the rampaging footsteps of Grantaire’s brute of a father.

Except, there wasn’t any rampaging.

In fact, neither of them could hear the characteristic thumping about the place that happened whenever Grantaire’s father was in the house, no matter how hard they listened. They exchanged confused looks and gingerly began to clamber out from under the bed, each wondering whether it ha been some kind of mutual auditory hallucination. Possibly.

They stood together in the lingering silence of the room, wondering what to do, for a minute or so before either of them even dared to begin moving around once more. A minute after that, Éponine even dared to whisper a question at Grantaire.

“Do you think he’s here?”

Before Grantaire could begin to whisper back his utterly unhelpful response of ‘I don’t know’, they were terrified into silence once more as the door to Grantaire’s room burst open.

Naturally, each friend immediately leapt to the other’s protection, as if compelled to by an instinct¹. Grantaire grasped her arm in an effort to pull her behind him and Éponine side-stepped in front of him with her arm out protectively. So ingrained was this intrinsic instinct into their psyches, that, even as the element of danger was removed from the equation, it took a good few seconds for them to both drop their guards.

Yes, they were, in fact, in no danger. None whatsoever.

The person standing in the open doorway was none other than a flustered, worried, and utterly furious-looking Enjolras.

“Where the fuck were you?!” Enjolras hissed at the both of them as they dropped their guard.

“Hey,” Gavroche greeted, calmly waving as he stepped out from behind the fuming teen to get a better look at his babysitter accosting his family.

“He left two hours late. There was nothing we could have done!” he retorted. Enjolras looked slightly less pissed off. Slightly.

“And you couldn’t have texted me? Just to let me know?”

At this point, Éponine had stepped away from the path of Grantaire and Enjolras’s spat. She didn’t think that it would get any more serious, but she had found, over the past almost six years of ABC meetings, that she could never predict what their arguments were going to come to.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to worry unnecessarily or come racing over here and run into him!”

“I was already worried! This is dangerous, what you’re doing, and I just want to know, as far as possible, that you are as safe as you can be!” The emotions reached a fever pitch within Enjolras and an unexpected tear slid down his cheek; he just wanted Grantaire safe.

During the next couple of minutes, no words were spoken between the two of them. Grantaire simply strode over to Enjolras and embraced him tightly, every so often placing chaste kisses on Enjolras’s neck, shoulder, and into the short part of his hair.

Éponine and Gavroche glanced at each other. Their expressions _clearly_ meaning _‘These dorks deserve each other’_. Nevertheless, despite the sickening affection, they couldn’t help but be happy for them. Even if they’re both morons.

Eventually, the boys parted, murmuring apologies and I-love-yous to each other.

“How did you even get here?” Éponine asked Enjolras out of the blue as a thought occurred to her. A sweet, pink blush flushed Enjolras’s cheeks and the tips of his ears at the question. Despite his complexion betraying his embarrassment, his words and tone were confident and unapologetic.

“I drove.”

“You can’t drive!” she shot back.

“Clearly I can.”

“Can you drive legally?” Grantaire joined the interrogation, a cheeky edge to his voice.

“No,” he admitted matter-of-factly, “But, in my defence, I thought the two of you were in danger. Plus, I _can_ drive! I have a provisional licence!”

“Okay, Argyle,” Éponine said. Her tone wasn’t patronising, but it certainly gave one the impression that she’d had to use it on Gavroche before when he was being uncooperative. “Give me the keys,” she continued, holding out her hand for them. Enjolras reluctantly handed them over, grumbling under his breath about how he’d managed to drive there without any problems. Used to dealing with Gavroche when he got surly – as all teenagers inevitably do at some point – she brushed it off and pocketed the keys.

“Right,” Grantaire said eventually, “We’ve only got my bookshelf and art stuff left to pack into the van, so that shouldn’t take more than another twenty minutes if you want to help or wait by the van or something.”

Enjolras nodded immediately, glad that he was finally being allowed to help in a meaningful and valuable way.

“Is the van unlocked?” he asked, turning between Grantaire and Éponine. Grantaire nodded. “Gav, do you want to go and wait in the van?”

Without another word given or a glance up from his phone, Gavroche walked out of the room.

“Since when do you call him ‘Gav’?” Éponine cut in. She didn’t sound _suspicious _exactly, but her tone of voice made it very clear that her naturally mistrusting nature was coming to the forefront of her mind.

Éponine and Enjolras had never managed to get close to each other – in terms of friendship – as they both have with other members of the ABC. It isn’t that they didn’t like each other, they are technically friends! They just weren’t open with each other (like Grantaire and Jehan), or tactile with each other (like Courfeyrac and literally all of Les Amis), or particularly caring for each other (like Cosette and Enjolras). Their friendship is based on respect. Their lives are opposite in so many ways, but they have always managed to acknowledge those differences and treat each other with respect both despite and because of those differences.

That being said, Éponine is a naturally suspicious person – years of being around people who lie for a living will do that to a person – and the one thing on the planet that sets of her distrust-meter more than anything is change. Especially when that change concerns the most important person in her life: her brother. So, even though she respects and, for the most part, trust Enjolras, even a small change like that sets off warning bells to her.

To Enjolras’s credit, though, her guarded tone didn’t deter or unnerve him in the slightest².

“Since I found out he’s nowhere near as much of an asshole as I was at his age.”

When Éponine still didn’t look convinced, he continued, his tone less cheeky and more reassuring than it had been before.

“Seriously, Éponine, you should be proud of yourself. He is a great kid.”

Grantaire wasn’t quite sure what happened next. Really, these are two of the people he knows and loves the most in the world and he would not be able to explain their next interaction for the life of him. He would merely be able to list the interaction as a series of events, the culmination of which seemed to be – though he wasn’t certain – reconciliation and/or a confirmation of friendship…? Perhaps?

If Grantaire were, with a gun to his head, forced to make said list, it might look something like this.

Ép makes a sort of choked, sobbing noise

Apollo pats her on the shoulder

Ép chokes down her emotions (Fucking typical. Feeling things is not the end of the fucking world, dude.)

Apollo nods at her

Ép nods back to him

The interaction ends and I am confused.

Unexpectedly, Gavroche speaks from the doorway.

“Are you guys done talking about me? I wanna go home. I’m bored.”

“I thought you had gone to the van?” Éponine asked, scrubbing a hand over her face and realising how exhausted she felt; It had been a long day.

“Did. Got bored. Came back.” With that short series of answers, he collapsed into the corner of the room closest to the door and occupied it with his phone in hand. Undeterred, Éponine forged forward.

“You know, if you helped us, we’d be done much sooner and we could go home and have tea.” Gavroche’s ears seemed to perk up, his interest piqued.

“What are we having?”

“Tomato soup.”

Gavroche drooped, disappointed. It would be the fifth night in a row where tinned tomato soup was on the menu and, frankly, Gavroche was getting sick of it.

“But,” Éponine continued, “I went shopping before you woke up today and bought the ingredients for R to make Mars Bar sauce when we’re done here, but, I guess, if you don’t help, you won’t get any…” There it was. The big guns.

Mars Bar sauce was something that Grantaire’s aunt had taught him to make when he was about eight. It is made of Mars Bars, butter, and cream and you can make your arteries clog up just by looking at it and it is, in Grantaire’s opinion, the nectar of the gods. It is served hot on ice cream and it is probably the closest thing that Grantaire has ever had to comfort food.

The first time he made it for Éponine and Gavroche was the very same night that he’d shown up on their doorstep, unannounced and in tears. It was the night his aunt had died. At about three in the morning that night, Gavroche was pulled downstairs to the kitchen, a beautifully sweet smell wafting through the house. When he stumbled blearily into the kitchen, Gavroche saw Grantaire standing, hunched over a pot on the hob. Neither said anything, they merely revelled in the sweet air around them and let themselves stew in it. When Éponine joined them, mere minutes later, not a word was said. She joined Gavroche in watching the sauce bubble and come alive in all of its artery-clogging glory. Before long, the sauce was served up on whatever ice cream Grantaire had managed to scrounge up from the bottom of the freezer and they were eating it silently. No one spoke a word to each other about the incident until the morning – well, later morning – when he explained. Wistful, sad smiles and silent tears dripping down Grantaire’s face inspired a sort of reverential silence while he enlightened them.

Since then, Mars Bar sauce isn’t just Mars Bar sauce. It is code for “I have something very important to tell you both, but it is important to me so I can only do it in absolute privacy. I will tell you at three in the morning over a bowl of diabetes.” This system worked surprisingly well. It allows them to let one another know that, whatever they end up talking about, it is serious and not up for discussion and – very possibly – less than legal.

When Éponine was telling Gavroche he might not be included, it doesn’t mean he won’t (he will be), it simply means “Pull your head out of your ass and help, this is more serious than you know right now.”

Gavroche was on his feet in a matter of seconds and haphazardly throwing things into any manner of boxes. It wasn’t exactly what you would call sophisticated organisation, but it definitely fulfilled a purpose. 

As I said, the system works surprisingly well.

The rest of them took Gavroche’s actions as a signal to get packing. Fair enough considering that it was nearing ten and, not only was the seemingly erratic timetable of Grantaire’s father something that lit a metaphorical fire under their asses but, they had school the next morning and none of them were particularly fond of the idea of waltzing in with minimal sleep and brains that were in no way ready to absorb the knowledge about to be hurled at them from all angles.

The rest of Grantaire’s stuff that fell under the genre of ‘miscellaneous crap’ was shoved into several boxes and they came to, probably, their biggest hurdle: Art Stuff.

It has never been a secret that Grantaire likes art. It might even be one of the few things on the face of the earth that he is genuinely passionate about. On any given day, he could fill a dozen canvasses with beautiful paintings – obviously, he would hate every single one of them (he’s a self-critical artist, that’s just who he is), but his friends would tell him that they are absolutely gorgeous – and still have enough caffeine and talent left in him to paint a good-sized mural on a spare wall. Knowing this, is it even slightly a surprise that the pile of art stuff in his room was almost as big as Gavroche?

They started with a stack of sketchbooks the size of a particularly fluffy French poodle, ie. bigger than a chihuahua but smaller than your typical English spaniel. You know, a manageable size. Enjolras could have spent hours flipping through every single page in every single one of the books, marvelling at how talented his boyfriend is. Though, he barely got through voicing his suggestion before Grantaire was vehemently objecting, spewing nonsense about how they didn’t have time and how he would _totally _let him go through them _all _later. Grantaire completely meant to stick to this, but he had always found Enjolras’s puppy eyes pretty difficult to resist – as is the man himself – and ended up giving him one, just one though, to look through. What was he supposed to do? He’s not made of stone!

Next, they tackled the three cheap Ikea storage tubs containing all of the paintbrushes, paints, markers, sketching pencils, charcoals, and even a few posable mannequins that he’d accumulated over the years. Needless to say, those boxes – while requiring no immediate organisation to speak of – were a bitch to get out to the van. Seriously, what must amount to _litres_ of paint is pretty fucking heavy just on its own!

Then came the canvasses.

Easily there were thirty canvasses, each seemingly of a different size to the last and in various stages of completion.

As much as Enjolras respects Grantaire’s choice to not show him his sketchbooks – it was, after all, _his _choice – there was no way in hell that he wasn’t going to look at the wonderful paintings stacks haphazardly at one end of the room.

Grantaire, of course, knew his boyfriend. He knew that Enjolras was going to want to see each painting one by one. He also knew that he couldn’t stop him, not really. Plus, these paintings aren’t like the sketchbooks; they’re meant to be seen. It’s strange. He had never been nervous about people seeing his art before, he was always violently indifferent to others’ opinions, but, when faced with Enjolras seeing the paintings – many of which he had himself inspired – he had to admit, he was absolutely terrified.

Among the many canvasses, lay no fewer than nine depictions of Enjolras.

As the man himself sifted through the piles of canvasses, packing them into boxes for safekeeping as he went, Grantaire became more and more terrified of what was to come when he reached the bottom of the pile, where the paintings of Enjolras were. He was even tempted to pull his boyfriend away at the last second and distract him by any means necessary.

No, that doesn’t mean anything dirty.

It means, releasing the Kraken: asking Enjolras to give his opinion on capitalism.

Sure, it would halt any progress towards getting his stuff packed, but, holy shit, Grantaire did _not _want to deal with the cringe or the backlash that would inevitably come from Enjolras seeing those paintings.

Grantaire’s deliberation came to nought in the end, however, as he spent so long contemplating how to distract him that, by the time he was anywhere near some sort of conclusion, Enjolras was pulling him out of his trance by tugging on his sleeve.

Any fears he may have had vanished the moment he saw the wonder and reverence in his face. 

“You really painted these?” Enjolras’s tone was awestruck, to say the least. Grantaire nodded sheepishly, having abandoned the pursuit of packing in favour of spectating as his boyfriend critiqued his work.

Enjolras gently set aside each painting as he moved onto the next, as though each were a masterpiece worthy of a place in the Louvre or the Met. Even the unfinished ones, he treated with veneration, the abandoned ones of The Sanctuary and half-finished ones of their friends becoming Monets and Rembrandts in his loving eyes.

Flattered is not quite the right word to describe how Enjolras felt as he finally came to the nine depictions of himself at the bottom of the pile.

He felt a manic combination of emotions that he likely couldn’t describe succinctly if he tried. It was some mixture of being surprised, flattered, in awe, proud, and inexplicably, suddenly and intensely emotional all at once. His breath caught in his throat as he took in how each one was passionately expressive in its composition, careful and deliberate in each brushstroke, and lovingly finished without a hint of shame or apprehension in the paintings themselves. The care and talent put into the paintings made Enjolras’s heart swell with love and pride for Grantaire, but the way they had found them contribute a sizable dose of sadness to the absolute confusion of emotions that he was feeling. They had been left at the bottom of the pile and shoved into the corner of a room that he hardly ever went in anymore. The paintings themselves may be free of shame, but the way that Grantaire had hidden them away suggested that the artist was not so lucky.

If Jehan were there, they would have said something along the lines of it representing Grantaire’s repression and shame, at the time, over his love for Enjolras.

Jehan is lovely, but sometimes psychoanalysis is less than helpful.

When he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the gorgeous work in front of him, Enjolras took a couple of moments of simply looking at Grantaire before leaping into his arms and embracing him in a hug that could rival even Courfeyrac’s tightest and most eager hugs.

For a good few moments, Grantaire was stunned.

“What’s this for?” he finally spoke into Enjolras’s neck.

“For you being amazing.” Enjolras continued to cling to him for a further few moments only eventually pulling away to plant a slow and loving kiss on his boyfriend’s lips.

“Ew!” came Gavroche’s shrill voice from the other side of the room, “Get a room!”

Grantaire pulled away, eliciting a small, protesting whine from Enjolras.

“I have a room. You’re in it, little breeches.”

Gavroche can be excused for childishly sticking his tongue out at Grantaire given that he was – _technically _– still a child. Grantaire, on the other hand, was not and therefore deserved it completely when Gavroche went bounding over, with almost no warning and tackled him in a flurry of playful, brotherly slaps.

Éponine watched that scene play out from the side-lines. She, too, had abandoned the work of packing (she was packing the books from the large shelf away into boxes) in lieu of watching Enjolras examine the paintings, ready to step in at a moment’s notice should he have said or done anything to hurt Grantaire. She didn’t think he would. After all, she trusted Enjolras, but, as we have already established, there is nothing that Éponine wouldn’t do to protect her family, even if that means losing a friend.

She resumed the task at hand as they embraced, only looking up as the horseplay ensued, smiling contentedly at the tableau: Enjolras and Gavroche teaming up on Grantaire as Enjolras holds Grantaire down while Gavroche tickles him. If any sight could lift spirits, cure depression, and clear skin, it would be that. The two most important people in her life genuinely enjoying their lives as Enjolras supports Grantaire’s passion for art and treats them both with the love and respect they deserve. Éponine found herself so overcome with an almost ineffable happiness, that she didn’t pay attention as she tried to reach around the back of the bookcase she was sorting.

It wasn’t until the shelf moved and the ball was already flying downwards that she even knew something was wrong.

\-----

¹It should have been a bloody instinct by that point. By then, Éponine and Grantaire had been protecting each other for longer than either of them could even remember. Even when they got into serious arguments that resulted in them refusing to talk to each other for days on end, they would defend each other, neither begrudging about it. To them, that was what their friendship meant. Always having each other’s backs. No matter what. Grantaire would always be on Éponine’s six and Éponine would always have Grantaire’s back. When they are with each other, they are always protected. 

²This is because, as much as they would both be reluctant to admit, they are very similar people. Yes, their lives are opposite in so many ways, but they, as people, are _so _similar. They are both fiercely and unrepentantly protective of those that they love and they have both seen some of the worst qualities of humankind. Éponine in her parents’ manipulation and Grantaire’s father’s abuse and Enjolras in his parents’ neglect and the selfishness of those in power unwilling to inconvenience themselves momentarily for the sake of long-term gain for those who need change the most. Enjolras understands the mistrust that Éponine feels because he sees how much she has suffered – so much more in comparison to him – and empathises. Hell, if the world had thrown everything at Enjolras that it had at Éponine, he’s not even sure he would have been able to come out of the end of it, let alone come out as strong as she is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're curious, Mars Bar Sauce is a genuine thing that we have very occasionally in my family. I don't know how common it is, or if it's just one of those weird things that my dad made up, but I am not exaggerating when I say that it is the nectar of the gods. Really. It is so good! If anyone wants the recipe, just ask in the comments and I will happily give it to you!
> 
> Comments and Kudos really do make me so happy, so any that you have is appreciated so much!


	4. Combeferre to the Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was kind of a mad dash to get done! Thank god for caffeine! Just so you know, I usually finish the first full draft of the chapter on the Friday before I post it. Then, it gets edited and proofread over the course of Saturday and Sunday and finally posted late at night on the Sunday. The first draft of this chapter, however, was finished at 21:38 on Sunday on a caffeine-induced writing frenzy and edited at 00:12 the same - well, technically next - day, so, you know, apologies in advance. 
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> QUICK CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCES TO NEGLECT AND ABUSE, GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF INJURY, SHIT PARENTING

Despite being in a rather terrible situation, with regards to their current location, the boys were having a rather excellent time. Enjolras had managed to pin Grantaire down by the shoulders and Gavroche was using the opportunity to tickle Grantaire with practised ease and calculated violence. He didn’t have any siblings of his own, so he had never really had much insight into that kind of dynamic – though he did get pretty damn close to it with his friendship with Combeferre and Courfeyrac – but he supposed that he wouldn’t be able to get a better window into the kind of relationship than Grantaire and Gavroche.

Seriously, it astounded him how close they were.

It wasn’t like any of the stiff, formal relationships he’d had with any of his biological family members; the closest he had ever got to a friendly brawl with any of them would have likely been that one time a cousin punched him in the face for pointing out that he was being a bigot. When he thought about it, Enjolras realised that it was by far closer to the bonds he shared with the other members of the ABC. The thought put an undeniable smile on his face.

Had he been able to continue this train of thought, Enjolras would have happily decided that Les Amis were his real family and that, as soon as he was able to, he would move away from St Michel (as much as he loves it) and move somewhere else where he had no obligations to the people he shared nothing more than a biological link with.

Unfortunately, a thudding noise only marginally less awful than the horrible cracking sound that it was paired with tore them away from their game and Enjolras away from his thoughts.

You know the kind of pain where it hurts so much that you can’t even scream? That kind of profound, bone-deep pain that almost makes you throw up with its intensity? Yeah, that’s how Éponine felt as the bowling ball connected with her arm. If she was told to describe it, she would have simply given whatever dumbass asked the question one of her signature withering looks and said that it fucking hurt. And it did. It really fucking hurt.

Grantaire scrambled to his feet, adrenaline kicking in.

“Ponine!” he exclaimed, stumbling quickly in her direction, “What happened?”

She gave him as incredulous a look as she possibly could while pain tore through her entire body.

“Right. Bowling ball. Sorry, stupid question. What do you need me to do?”

That was when it hit her like a tidal wave of anxiety.

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know what to do.

She was potentially _seriously _injured, and she couldn’t think of the first way to deal with it and that thought _terrified _her.

She couldn’t help the tears that began to stream down her face in rivulets and, frankly, she was too scared and in too much pain to be even slightly embarrassed about the great, gasping breaths that tore from her throat.

Éponine was scared.

_Éponine was scared. _

Éponine was scared and that scared the absolute shit out of Grantaire.

Sure, he was biologically older, and she had even referred to him as her older brother before, but, make no mistakes she’s the big sister. She always knows what to do in an emergency and she always managed to keep a level head when everyone else is freaking out around them, but right then she was lost and that was much more frightening for Grantaire than anything or anyone in that house ever could be.

He turned helplessly towards Enjolras and Gavroche.

They wore matching grimaces of shock on their ashen faces, neither of them able to hide the nauseous feeling the sight of Éponine’s rather mangled arm caused them. They were just as helpless as Grantaire.

Well, almost as helpless.

Whilst he may not have been able to speak properly right away, Enjolras did the only thing he could think to do, something he had been doing since he was six years old¹. He called Combeferre for help.

His hands trembled as he searched through his contacts for the name he was looking for and his breath was shaky as the phone rang on speakerphone.

“Hey!” Combeferre’s bright voice said through the phone.

“Hey, uh,” he had to clear his throat because his voice had come out scratchy and hoarse, as though he had been screaming for an hour straight, “We need your help.” Combeferre’s tone changed from fun to serious in a millisecond and Grantaire could practically hear the concerned frown in his voice.

“What’s happened?”

“A bowling ball fell on Éponine’s arm.”

“Éponine? Is she okay?”

“A bowling ball fell on my arm, Combeferre, of course I’m not fucking okay!” Éponine cut in, her voice strained from the pain.

“Of course, silly question. Okay, is it definitely broken?”

“It fucking feels broken,” she mumbled grumpily, though, given a broken bone, I’d say she’s allowed to be a little grumpy.

“Yes,” Enjolras said a little more clearly. Now that Combeferre was adding a little sanity and rational thinking into their situation, he found it easier to act and speak and generally function without panicking or vomiting.

“I’m assuming it’s not an open fracture?” He sounded slightly shaky himself asking that question, and rightly so. When the three of them were kids, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras had been in a park and Courfeyrac had decided that he wanted to climb the big, old oak tree. Big, old _mistake._ He had fallen out seconds after claiming ‘_Of course I’m not going to fall out Enj! I’m perfectly balanced!’' _He had hit the ground hard and at a weird enough angle to completely mess up his leg. If the sight of one of the bones in his lower leg sticking out through a mess of skin and blood hadn’t been such an awful, sobering sight, Enjolras might have poked fun at his hubris.

“No, it’s not.”

Combeferre’s sigh of relief was audible over the phone.

Suddenly, Éponine was panicking again.

“What if it’s permanently damaged? What if I won’t be able to take notes in class and I have to drop out? What if I can’t scan the items at the checkout and I get fired? I can’t get fired! I need that job!” came the flurry of what-ifs and desperate begging with the universe.

Once again, Grantaire felt helpless. He knew what he needs when he gets into a downward spiral: a grounding force to cling onto while he gets all of his emotions out. Somehow, though, he didn’t think that it would work for Éponine; she had never been the type to let out emotions, really. He very rarely saw her open the floodgates, so to speak, now that she had, though, Grantaire was at a loss for what to do.

Luckily, it seemed that he didn’t have to do anything. Combeferre to the rescue once more.

“Éponine! Listen to me, your arm is going to be fine. It’ll take no more than a few months to heal and then it’ll be as good as new, okay? In the meantime, you can take notes with your laptop and Sister Simplice and Monsieur Madeline will both let you record the audio of a lesson on your phone. With regards to your job, you won’t have lost all use of your arm, you’ll still be able to swipe objects over the till. I know saying ‘don’t worry’ doesn’t help, but, please, try not to worry too much. As long as you get to the hospital today, you will be absolutely fine. Trust me.”

By the time he finished, Éponine’s erratic breathing had slowed to almost normal, her face wasn’t as pale – it had even developed a slight blush – and she was nodding along with his words.

“Okay,” she said, steeling herself both mentally and physically for what was to come next, “I’m ready to stand up.”

“Good luck,” Combeferre said over the phone, “Please call me back if you need anything. Anything at all.”

“We will. Thank you. Goodbye, Ferre.” Enjolras ended the call and rushed over to help Grantaire help Éponine up.

Boxes still scattered the room in various stages of capacity and the offending bowling ball had rolled under the bed, but all of this was ignored in favour of the group helping to transport Éponine out of the house and into the car.

Speaking of the car, someone was going to have to drive it. Not Gavroche, for obvious reasons. Not Éponine, for equally obvious – though different – reasons. Not Grantaire either. Seriously, no one in their right mind should ever, _ever _let Grantaire behind the wheel of a car. It’s not that no one has ever tried to teach him because, dear god, have they tried, but just that he is incapable of learning. Éponine had tried twice. Once for real and a second to make sure that she hadn’t had a horrible nightmare the first time. Bahorel had also tried once, but he refused to talk about it. Really, Grantaire cannot and should not legally drive _ever. _

Enjolras’s status as a legal driver, however, was somewhat in a middling zone.

Yes, he could drive in both theory and in practice, but, in the eyes of the law, he was still a child who needed to be supervised by a licensed, insured driver at all times. One can imagine how much exactly that pissed him off. He isn’t a _reckless _driver per se, it’s just that, as he is about most things in his life, he is very passionate and, when another road user is being a moron, he feels the need to let them know with hand gestures and extensive use of the horn. Apparently, according to his driving teacher, this is road rage and should not be practised by safe and sensible drivers. _Yeah, Janice? Well, I’d like to see you not throw the middle finger up at the guy just sitting in the box junction. Dickhead._

Suffice to say, though, right at that moment, Enjolras was the only competent, unimpaired driver they had and so Éponine had no other option than to hand him back his car keys.

“Don’t make me regret this, blondie,” she said with narrowed eyes. Neither Enjolras or Grantaire could tell immediately if the narrowed eyes were because of the pain of her broken arm or suspicion regarding Enjolras’s rather erratic driving. He wanted to believe that it was the former, but the latter unfortunately seemed so much more likely.

Actually getting an injured Éponine into Enjolras’s mother’s little, red car was an ordeal that not one single member of their group would ever, _ever _want to do again. It is a known fact that Grantaire is a bitch to be around when he is ill. It’s not his fault, he just can’t seem to stop complaining when he feels sick. A lesser-known fact, however, is that Éponine is the exact opposite when injured. Psychologists would probably trace her indifferent and almost secretive treatment of herself and her injuries back to her fraught childhood and desire not to draw attention to herself. Invariably, she would tell those psychologists to fuck off. Because of this desire to not draw attention to herself, Grantaire found it awfully difficult to navigate getting her into the car.

“Does this hurt?” he asked, taking the seat next to her and trying to avoid touching her injured arm with his own.

The vague, lopsided shrug that came his way was, quite honestly, less than helpful.

“Ponine,” he forged on, “I need you to tell me. You know, with words. I’ve never broken a bone; I don’t know how much it hurts or what makes it worse. You’re going to have to tell me.”

“This is fine,” she responded, endeavouring not to sound indifferent, perfectly aware of her lack of ability where it came to communication. Grantaire nodded in response and settled next to her, carefully avoiding touching the injured arm.

After five minutes of waiting in the car driverless, Éponine and Grantaire exchanged confused glances; Enjolras and Gavroche seemed to have disappeared. Éponine had been so sure that they’d all exited the house together, but the clear absence of her brother and her friend suggested otherwise.

“Sorry, sorry, we’re here!” came Enjolras’s voice from the now-open passenger-side door. “We went back for a couple of boxes that we hadn’t managed to get into the van earlier,” he explained and, sure enough, Gavroche, who had taken up the passenger seat, had two, large boxes full of art stuff laden on his lap.

“Can one of you take one of these boxes? They’re fucking heavy!” Gavroche whined into the back.

“Sorry, buddy, but that’s the price you pay for sitting in the front!” Grantaire shot back, using a sort of _‘I don’t make the rules, sorry, kid’ _kind of tone. Gavroche huffed but didn’t mention the boxes again.

That was until they reached the hospital. Their parking space wasn’t far from the entrance to A&E, a miracle really. Still, the short distance they had to walk was enough to have Gavroche complaining that the boxes had cut off the blood supply to his feet and that they were completely numb and how was he supposed to walk all the way to the entrance without feet?!

Suffice to say, Éponine, with her broken arm, wasn’t what you would call overly sympathetic.

Even at whatever-o’clock at night, A&E was a complete nightmare. The number of drunken idiots there for concussions, or wounds from falling on broken glass, or just general drunken buffoonery was slightly concerning, especially considering that it was a Tuesday. As Enjolras glanced around the waiting room – Éponine and Grantaire were in consulting with the nurse – he saw all manner of people, all of them unhappy. He hated hospitals. The hospitals themselves are fine, it’s just the people. No one goes to a hospital to have a good time and in no place is this more evident than a waiting room. Seriously, Enjolras was sure that, if he tried, Combeferre could catalogue several dozen different kinds of frowns from A&E alone and have each one categorised as a different kind of disgruntlement. Call him old fashioned, Enjolras just wasn’t a particular fan of seeing the suffering of injured people.

Plus, he just wasn’t that great with blood or vomit. 

Five minutes later, Éponine and Grantaire emerged from the consultation room carried by an aura of simultaneous relief and irritation.

“Another waiting room yay.” Éponine didn’t even bother sitting down with them before continuing on towards the area signposted as _‘Radiology’._

Enjolras raised his eyebrows at Grantaire who explained that the nurse had said that the break would likely heal well over a course of a couple of months but that they had to get an x-ray to know for sure. He nodded along to his boyfriend’s explanation, but Enjolras took almost none of it in, glancing instead over to Gavroche, who had managed to fall asleep during the period of around an hour and a half that they had been waiting, and realised that all he really wanted was to fall asleep too.

“You go with Éponine,” he said, realising that he had almost entirely zoned out for a second, “I’ll wait here with Gav.”

Grantaire glanced over to where Éponine had disappeared towards Radiology moments before and nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, pressing a kiss to Enjolras’s cheek and almost sprinting after Éponine. Enjolras shook his head with a smile on his face as he watched him go; there was no denying it: his life had definitely got weirder in the week they had been together. There was also no denying, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

That was how Enjolras drifted to sleep in the middle of St Michel A&E, surrounded by drunken morons with a collection of minor to major injuries, with an exhausted tween slumped against his shoulder.

***

Two places. Her arm was broken in _two places. _Fucking fantastic.

You know, Éponine had been beginning to think that everything was going a little _too _well in her life recently. Really, her parents had fucked off to America a month before and there was no sign that they were coming back any time soon, she had got a good, legal job that had a steady stream of money coming in that allowed her to buy groceries, and school was somehow not being a raging pain in her ass every single waking moment. It was all coming up Éponine. Well, until it wasn’t, obviously.

The estimate of how long it would take her arm to heal had gone up to at least three months, possibly more depending on how it goes during the next month or so. On top of that, she had to somehow get back into town the next day to go to the fracture clinic to have her arm plastered up because, apparently, this incredibly common healing tool is just not kept at St Michel A&E because _of course it fucking isn’t. _That would be way too convenient.

It wasn’t as though Éponine was _fuming _with rage as she strode angrily out of Radiology with her arm in a sling, but several frightened-looking people – both staff and civilians – cleared out of her path as she did. She wasn’t angry at a particular person, just the universe as a whole. Well, perhaps she was a little pissed off at Grantaire’s past self for thinking that a good place to store a bowling ball was on top of a rather large shelf. Mainly, though, the universe was the target of her rage.

“Don’t worry,” Grantaire was saying as he almost jogged to keep up with her, “You’ve got a free first thing tomorrow and I have a double free first thing, so we’ll take the bus into town together and get you sorted at the fracture clinic.”

“Thanks. I’m just annoyed because this fucking thing happened and now because of it I’m going to be playing catchup with my lessons until the end of fucking time! I can’t even text someone and ask them to take notes for me because everyone else in my social care class is either a dickhead or a moron!”

By the end of her rant, they had reached Enjolras and Gavroche back in the waiting room. Gavroche was still asleep and, judging by the cheap cup of hospital coffee clutched in his grasp and the lightly disgusted expression settled on Enjolras’s face that only drinking said hospital coffee can bring, Enjolras was fending it off as best he could.

“Come on, sleeping beauty,” Grantaire said with as much forced brightness as he could muster at 1:02 am, poking Gavroche on the shoulder sharply. Reluctantly, Gavroche stirred and, two minutes later – when they could dawdle no longer – they were all dragging their feet to their absolute godsend of a parking space.

***

A kiss, a little help with transporting the few boxes they managed to grab before rushing out to the car, a quick promise to drive Bahorel's van over the next day and Enjolras was driving away from the house. The moment they arrived, Gavroche was out of the car and into the house in a flash. Éponine took her time to get out of the car, manoeuvring carefully, her determination to make sure that her arm heals perfectly evident on the focused frown on her face. Grantaire stayed in the driveway for a little while, watching as Enjolras drove away, the red of the car fading into the night. He could still feel where his lips had been on his just a moment before. No matter how long they lasted, Grantaire wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to feeling that immediately followed saying goodbye.

He shook himself off after a minute or two, internally scolding himself for being so dramatic. Ah, well.

It was cold inside the house. It always was, but Grantaire hated it every time he walked through the door. Cold and dark. The lights were off in all of the hallways to save on the electricity bill and the heating was only ever turned on in the dead of winter. Despite all of the things that Grantaire hated about the house, there were always more things that he loved about living with the Thénardier’s. For every light switch with the switches covered in duct tape, there was a cheap, cotton scented candle that did its best to cover the smell of the three teenagers who inhabited the house. For every cold night without the central heating, there were birthday and Christmas gifts of comfy jumpers, jackets, and scarves. Even in his brief time of living there _officially, _Grantaire was used to each of the little quirks that came with living with them. This is probably because he’d been living with them _unofficially, _on and off, for four years.

At this point, the feeling of the worn carpet under his socks was familiar and, dare he say, almost comforting in a homey way and he could easily step over the creaky floorboards and the shoes that Gavroche always left strewn about the hallway. It was wonderful. It was a home that Grantaire had never had with his biological family.

This home was, as many are, centred in the kitchen, the hearth. A glow of warmth emitted from it almost perpetually and it was, by far, Grantaire’s favourite place in the house. Given that he was the only one with any kind of cooking ability – god knows where he got it from – Grantaire immediately gravitated to the hob. Gavroche had taken the liberty to go into the fridge and get out all of the ingredients that Éponine had bought that morning. The woman herself sat at the breakfast bar, determinedly keeping her tired eyes open as she struggled through some piece of homework that _clearly _wasn’t cooperating with her sleep-deprived brain. Gavroche, having scavenged through the fridge for the ingredients, had slumped over in the seat next to his sister and fallen back asleep. Grantaire chuckled lightly at the sight; he definitely had a weird family.

Despite the implications that their tradition had brought to Mars Bar sauce, Grantaire found himself falling easily into the process of making it, even finding it quite therapeutic to whisk the cream and chocolate mixture into a rich sauce.

It was two in the morning before the bowls of diabetes were placed in front of the other two occupants of the kitchen and Grantaire took his place in the final available seat at the breakfast bar. 

Three minutes and twenty-three seconds exactly of silence passed before Éponine finally said what she wanted to say.

“I have a plan,” she announced eventually, setting her spoon down and looking at her brothers resolutely, “I want to finish explaining it fully before either of you interject or try to contribute in any way.

“Okay, so, I think it’s pretty obvious that mum and dad aren’t coming back. They’ve fucked off to America without any word on when they’ll be back and left us, okay? We might as well face it. We have about enough money to pay the bills on this place until August, but then we’re completely fucked. My plan is for us to put all of our money together and get a place that we can actually afford. I know it’s not exactly urgent, but we can’t stay here forever and the sooner we make a plan the better.”

As she spoke, Grantaire almost choked on his ice cream. If he had a higher opinion of himself, he might have said something along the lines of _‘great minds think alike’_. That had been his plan almost exactly. Formulated in the dark of the cupboard as they cowered in it, it had occurred to him that his father owed him enough money for them to put all of their savings together and get a place of their own, close to the lower school for Gavroche and close enough that they don’t have to take a bus every time either of them wants to get something from the shop. 

Éponine glanced anxiously between the two boys, trying to read their reactions from their expressions.

Slowly, Grantaire reached into his pocket and pulled out the wad of cash that had been burning a hole in his pocket ever since he had snagged it from the old biscuit tin on the windowsill in the kitchen of his childhood.

“There is about £250 here and I have about £80 upstairs. Does that seem like enough to be going on with for now?”

If her arm was in full working order, Éponine might’ve tackled him to the ground the way Gavroche had done earlier. As it was, she gave him a rather dazzling smile and thanked him with a nod.

“What do you think, Gav?” she asked, turning to her little brother for his judgment.

Whenever an important decision needs to be made by a member of the ABC, they always, invariably defer to Gavroche’s superior sense of judgment. That’s just how it works. If Gavroche doesn’t trust the new maths teacher at his school, Les Amis will keep an eye on him to make sure he does nothing untoward. If Gavroche decides a certain protest or march is too volatile, they don’t go. It really is as simple as that. He always has an opinion or a hunch.

He’s also always right.

The previous year, Gavroche had deemed that the new deputy head at the lower school wasn’t to be trusted. He had taken his concerns to the headteacher and was dismissed as just trying to stir up trouble among the staff. So, he told his big sister. Éponine told him to tell everyone at the ABC about his hunch and they agreed to keep an eye on the deputy-head. Less than two weeks later, Feuilly and Bahorel had caught her taking pictures of the year elevens as they left the PE block. It turned out that she was a reporter trying to write an inflammatory article on the sex lives of the year elevens. She was dismissed and reported the very next day and that awful and patronising article, thankfully, never saw the light of day.

So, yeah, they trusted Gavroche’s judgment.

Éponine tapped her fingers nervously on the countertop as she awaited his judgment. Gavroche’s sleepy face looked contemplative. Finally, he spoke.

“Would I get my own room?” he asked.

“Of course!” she replied without an ounce of hesitation in her voice.

“Cool. I’m in.”

Éponine leant her head on his shoulder appreciatively and tried her best to embrace him using only her good arm.

“Alright, finish your ice cream and then go to bed. Do you need me to write you an excuse note for your homework tomorrow?”

“No, I’ve actually done it all.”

She arched her eyebrow at him.

“Really! I promise I have!”

“Okay. Bed, then. Go on.”

Gavroche slunk off to bed easily, still in his school uniform. Grantaire suspected that he would probably sleep in it to give him more of a lie-in in the morning, after all, it is _exactly _the kind of thing he would have done had he still been stuck in uniforms. He smiled at the retreating form of his little brother and turned to the sink as it filled with warm, soapy water.

With an air of determination, Éponine grabbed the hand towel and strode next to Grantaire.

“Ponine…” he protested weakly, the ridiculously long day finally beginning to catch up with him.

“Shut up, I’m going to help you and you’re not going to say shit about it. If I have enough mobility to eat a bowl of ice cream, I have enough to dry the dishes.”

Grantaire had never been as great at withering, disapproving looks as Éponine, but he felt like it was his duty at that moment to at least try. Éponine stubbornly continued to dry the dishes, so it must’ve worked about as much as it usually did. Well, it was worth a try.

***

With pruney hands and tired minds, they both clambered into Éponine’s bed no more than half an hour later.

Staring at the ceiling and in their pyjamas. This was how Éponine and Grantaire had most of their conversations these days. It was convenient. After all, they were sleeping in the same bed, so they might as well take advantage of the proximity to have some good old-fashioned bro on bro conversation.

Today’s topic of conversation?

“What do you think of Combeferre?” Éponine asked out of the blue, during a lull in other conversation.

“Uh…” Frankly, that stumped Grantaire a little. “Yeah… Combeferre… solid dude… Why do you ask?”

“I think I might like him.” Éponine seemed as surprised by her own admission as Grantaire was.

“Right,” was all he seemed to be able to say.

“Well, he was really nice earlier when I was freaking out and he didn’t treat me like an idiot for not knowing what to do…”

Grantaire nodded along, only stopping to sit up and take a sip of water.

“Plus, he’s pretty easy on the eyes,” she continued, not taking her eyes off the ceiling.

Grantaire choked on his water and stared at Éponine incredulously.

“What? He is.”

“Okay…” he replied rather dumbly. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what else he could say. After all, Combeferre certainly wasn’t unattractive, but he just hadn’t thought that he was Éponine’s type is all. And, who could blame him? Éponine had only really liked two guys in the entire time that they had known each other. One was Marius, the sweet, boy next door type that had taken up Éponine’s affections for about three years when they had moved to secondary school. The other, the exact opposite of naïve, bumbling Marius: Montparnasse. They dated for about four months before they broke up, during which time they narrowly avoided getting arrested for trespassing, breaking and entering, and petty theft no fewer than six times.

Apparently, seven near misses with the law is where Éponine draws the line.

The point is, Combeferre is neither Marius nor Montparnasse. For a start, his name doesn’t begin with 'M'.

Combeferre isn’t typical boy-next-door pretty like Marius or dangerously gorgeous like Montparnasse. He’s not naïve like Marius or shrewd like Montparnasse. He’s not clumsy like Marius or agile like Montparnasse.

He’s entirely Combeferre.

Passionate, intelligent, modest, and possibly one of the kindest people on the planet.

“I think you and Combeferre would be great together,” Grantaire mumbled into the darkness of the room, unsure of whether Éponine was even awake, before slipping into sleep himself.

***

¹Enjolras had moved schools when he was six years old. His parents had decided to uproot their life and move to St Michel and a six-year-old Enjolras couldn't have cared less about it. He didn't have friends or even a teacher at his old school that he could tolerate for longer than he absolutely had to. He didn't welcome having to leave his home behind, but he didn't mourn the loss of his school either. He had arrived at St Michel and within minutes had caught the attention of Courfeyrac. Even at six-years-old, Courfeyrac had this strange ability to sniff out friends wherever he went and, the moment he laid eyes on Enjolras, he decided that they were going to be friends. Of course, with a friendship with Courfeyrac comes a friendship with Combeferre, both of which Enjolras was initially wary of, but the second Combeferre argued with a teacher because she had refused to take Enjolras's correct answer just because it hadn't occurred to her the friendship was confirmed. They haven't stopped being friends since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, you better believe I wrote several paragraphs about how wonderful my boy Combeferre is! Seriously, the guy is lovely!
> 
> Please leave me any spare comments and kudos you having lying around!


	5. Hospitals and Hospitality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! I promise I did try to get it out on time but I went on holiday again and it really drained me psychologically (it was London - big cities like that always do) and I could only manage writing maybe 100 words a day if that. So, apologies again for the late upload!
> 
> Please Enjoy!

Despite being the one with a broken arm, Éponine was still awake way before either Grantaire or Gavroche, shuffling through the house, getting ready for Gavroche to leave for his bus to school and her and Grantaire to leave for theirs into town. Éponine was very much a morning person. It’s not that she _enjoys _mornings per se, she is just not content to spend the morning lying in bed when she could be doing something that needs to be done. With her time alone, before anyone else wakes up, Éponine would do last minute bits of homework, check her timetable for the day, get herself almost completely ready to go, and put on a pot of coffee. Whilst a cooked breakfast may have been above her skill level in the kitchen, Éponine could make a mean cup o’ joe.

The warm, comforting smell wafted through the house and drifted slowly up the stairs and awoke Grantaire from his slumber. Unlike Éponine, Grantaire was very much _not _a morning person. Rather similar to bad shrimp, mornings just did not agree with Grantaire. They made him bitchy and annoying – Éponine’s words – and no one on the face of the earth should ever be made to deal with a Grantaire who hasn’t yet had his coffee.

A prime example of this morning bitchiness is an exchange between Jehan and Grantaire when the latter was complaining about that lack of coffee in his body.

“Do you think you have an addictive personality, R? I mean, you tend to rely on substances. Caffeine, alcohol, it doesn’t matter. What do you think?”

“I think I’d like you to fuck off for a bit now.”

With an aura not unlike that of the mountain troll from the first Harry Potter film, Grantaire – un-caffeinated – stumbled into the kitchen to the source of the smell. Being the morning person that she was, Éponine looked upon this daily occurrence with raised eyebrows and an amused smirk on her face.

“Morning,” she greeted, the smirk still on her face.

“Ugh,” he groaned, sinking into his usual morning spot next to her at the breakfast bar.

“Coffee?” She didn’t wait for an answer before shoving a steaming mug in front of her best friend.

He accepted it gratefully and gulped it down in a matter of minutes, despite its temperature.

“Better?”

He nodded, finally taking a moment to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

It was about 07:45 by the time that Gavroche drifted downstairs, yawning and gravitating towards the box of off-brand coco pops on the counter. The majority of their mornings as a household work in this way. Éponine wakes before everyone and does what she does, Grantaire wakes next and necks a large mug of coffee before doing what he needs to do, and Gavroche wakes last – every single day – and hauls himself about the house doing what Éponine tells him he needs to do, dragging his feet the whole way.

Gavroche’s school bus arrives at the bus stop – which is a two-minute walk from the house – at 08:10. God only knows why, given that the lower school starts at 09:00 and, from their bus stop, it has never taken them longer than ten minutes to get to the school. Gavroche never complained, though. He dragged his feet, yes, but only because he knew that he had to go to school, the timings were irrelevant. He didn’t complain as he left, either, calling out his goodbyes to Éponine and Grantaire and promising to see them at the ABC meeting that night.

Éponine, on the other hand, couldn’t help but be bitter about having to take a bus into town this early. No matter how much of a morning person someone is, telling them to leave the house before 08:30 to go to a hospital appointment for a broken arm that could have been so easily avoided had their best friend decided that it wasn’t a particularly good idea to store a fucking bowling ball on top of a bookcase will put them in a slightly tetchy mood.

Her crabbiness was so noticeable that even Grantaire, in his own lethargic and grumpy state, thought it best not to even try on the small talk front while they waited for their bus.

Before we proceed with the story, though it may not be entirely relevant, – however interesting it may be – it is helpful to understand the public transport system adopted by the people of St Michel. I say ‘adopted’ because, strictly speaking, there is no official system whatsoever regarding public transport other than the buses come when they come and more often than not the trains don’t show up and a replacement bus service occurs instead. Now, St Michel is a lovely place to go on holiday, there are plenty of cutesy, little bed-and-breakfast-type-things to support this kind of tourism, but no one _ever _goes back for more. Once people have experienced what St Michel has to offer, they run screaming from the absolute monstrosity that is the public transport.

The system created by the long-suffering residents of the town certainly didn’t put an end to this madness, but it certainly helped to make it a little easier to deal with in the long run. It goes as follows.

Rule one – the buses are always at least ten minutes late, so there’s no point showing up at the bus stop until five minutes past the “official” scheduled stop at a minimum.

Rule two – if the train is late, do not complain. This is St Michel. You’re lucky to be on a fucking train at all.

Rule three – have your money or ticket or pass ready by the time the bus arrives; the bus is already late, don’t be the one to make it later.

Rule four – if a tourist asks for help regarding the public transport, don’t be a dick, actually help them, they’re probably completely lost.

Rule five – there is a Facebook group for the residents regarding buses and if one is more than half an hour late, you have to put it on the group to let others know.

Rule six – even if you think that you’re going to be massively too early for your appointment, get the earliest bus you can get because it’ll probably just about get you there on time.

Rule seven – if you have the money, just give up and get a taxi.

This absolutely terrible public transport system is how Grantaire and Éponine ended up at the side of the road, under one of the most pathetic bus shelters you have ever seen, – officially five minutes late for the bus – waiting for a bus that was already twenty minutes late for an appointment fifteen minutes away in half an hour. Does it make sense? Kind of. Does Grantaire’s sleep-addled brain understand it? Barely. Still, they stood at under the remnants of the bus shelter and waited in easy silence.

Luckily, the bus – which, I’ll remind you, was already twenty minutes late – only took another ten to reach their stop. For St Michel, that’s practically early.

As per the unspoken rules of public transport, the two friends spent a good portion of their journey in silence. It was only when a thought popped into Éponine’s head and she couldn’t get rid of it that she finally spoke.

“Don’t you have a free period later, too?”

“What?” Grantaire was caught off guard completely.

“Yeah, you have a double free period first thing today, then maths, then lunch, and then another free. How?”

“I guess I just got lucky. I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it much before.” It wasn’t a lie either. He’d really never thought about it much; he’d always just been grateful for the extra hour or so of sleep that he would get every so often in the mornings. When he thought about it, though, he found himself realising, yeah, he had a lot of free periods. He’d always known that he had more free’s than Éponine, but he’d put that down as a result of her taking four subjects. How much more free time did he really have?

No. He shook the thoughts out of his head. This trip was for Éponine to fix her broken arm. Her broken arm that he hadn’t even asked about that morning despite it technically being his fault.

“How’s your arm?” he asked, trying to ignore the stream of anxious thoughts trickling through his head.

“Sore. I just want to get this over with.”

He nodded in response and silence took hold once more.

And get it over with they did.

The cast was purple. Some may say that getting a cast in your favourite colour is a childish thing to do but, you know what Éponine says to those people? Fuck ‘em. Purple is a fucking great colour and anyone who says otherwise is secretly a Russian spy. True story.

Unsurprisingly, the bus was late. That didn’t matter, though, because Grantaire took almost no notice of that fact and bounded like an over-excited golden retriever into his favourite art shop.

Bottles of paint of every imaginable colour lined the walls, paintbrushes filled shelf after shelf after shelf, there were more pencils around the shop than Éponine had ever seen in her life, and stacks of canvases of every size were dotted in ever corner created by the many, many shelves. For Grantaire, it was paradise. His eyes glazed over like a kid in a sweet shop the moment they walked through the door. As a particularly unartistic person, Éponine had no idea where to even begin, Grantaire, on the other hand, did. He immediately went to the paintbrushes, stroking the soft bristles of the watercolour ones reverentially and crouching down to get a better look at the cheaper ones on the bottom shelf. From Éponine’s perspective, Grantaire looked at, I don’t know, a million different brushes and so she was dumbfounded when he drifted away from the brushes to the pencils with empty hands. Thankfully, the pencils didn’t hold Grantaire’s attention for too long. He next drifted to the small marker section at the back of the shop. This was where it got interesting. He began picking up marker after marker, some he put back with a small shake of his head while others he passed to Éponine, who was standing next to him completely lost, to hold.

They ended up with around a dozen vibrant coloured markers as well as three metallic ones.

“They’re paint pens,” he tried to explain upon seeing Éponine’s clueless expression, “So we can all draw on your pot at the meeting today.” She nodded understanding his motives but still lost on why they needed special and _expensive _markers from Grantaire’s favourite art shop when Madame Houcheloup has a perfectly good tub full of sharpies in the cupboard at the back of her room.

_Art students, _she thought, shaking her head slightly but smiling, nonetheless. She knew that she would never understand all of Grantaire’s art stuff, but it made him happy, so it made her happy.

The bus came eventually and, as on the way there, they spent the majority of their journey in comfortable silence. Don’t mistake the lack of discomfort with each other as an indicator that both of them were happy. They weren’t. Éponine was unhappy that, by the time the bus would drop them outside school, she would have missed two entire lessons. Not good. That meant she would be playing catch-up, chasing down notes and homework assignments and all manner of shit until she caught up. Grantaire was unhappy for two unrelated – though equally distressing – reasons. They would make it to school just in time for maths. That was reason one; a tragedy in of itself. The other reason was far less immediate as problems go. He couldn’t stop himself thinking about what Éponine had said on the other bus. Why _did_ he have so many free periods? He’d thought that he’d just got lucky in the timetabling department, but, the more he thought about it, the more it worried him. What if something had really gone wrong and he was going to fail everything?! Also, he just really hated maths.

The bus clattered to a stop in front of the school gates. Like the courteous people that Jehan had taught them to be, they thanked the bus driver as they stepped off and were met with a tired and apathetic grunt before the bus doors rattled shut behind them and the tin can of disappointment on wheels crept away at a leisurely pace.

They signed into reception without a fuss, not that that prevented the receptionist – whom Grantaire is 90% sure is just a disgruntled ghost that haunts the foyer – from giving them one of her signature evil eyes as they sauntered reluctantly to their most hated lesson of the week. Yes, that’s right. Not only was it maths, but maths right before lunch on a Wednesday. The time when the student populous of St Michel is angrier than your average grizzly-bear-just-woken-up-by-some-moron-with-a-stick. Not a great time to be doing maths (not that any time is a great time to be doing maths).

Éponine and Grantaire were the first to arrive at their maths class, having arrived just before the end of the previous period, a fact that surprised no one more than their teacher. Usually, Éponine would show up late, dragging a scowling Grantaire behind her. Lacklustre is probably the best way to describe their performance in that class. Éponine was, surprising to everyone but her, passing despite her disdain for the subject. Grantaire, on the other hand, was failing. As you’ll remember, it was one of the reasons that pissed him off enough to do what he had done exactly one week before¹ and despite the change of scene in most other areas of his life, maths remained persistently the same. Fucking maths.

Grantaire spent the lesson with a furrowed brow, muttering curses at his workbook profane enough to make a sailor blush. He stared at the poor whiteboard as though he were willing it to spontaneously malfunction and delete the entirety of the concept of maths. Regardless of this, the teacher didn’t come over to check if he was alright even once. He merely shot concerned looks over to his and Éponine’s corner of the room.

“Maybe you should take Enjolras up on his offer,” Éponine suggested after a while, sick of watching her friend struggle.

Grantaire thought about it for a moment. Should he? After all, Enjolras offered and, as far as he could remember, Grantaire was sure that he had passed GCSE maths with flying colours and if he was going to be sleeping over at Enjolras’s as often as he had been – nothing had happened, get your mind out of the gutter – it only made sense for him to get some help with maths while he was there. It made perfect logistical sense but Grantaire found himself shaking his head nevertheless.

“No, it’d be too weird. ‘_Hello, darling,’” _he began mockingly, “'_please teach me maths then we can make out on your couch!’ _No thanks.”

Despite his jokes during the lesson from hell, as they made their way to the ABC meeting Grantaire found himself wondering whether it would be so bad. Suddenly, the words he had used to make the situation seem outlandish and ridiculous took a new light and didn’t seem so impossible.

In his mind, Enjolras was sitting on his couch, looking the picture of radiance in sweats and a red t-shirt that was a tad too tight, when he approached him. “Apollo, darling, teach me maths and then we can make out on your couch.”

Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.

Madame Houcheloup’s food preparation and nutrition room was situated possibly as far away from Grantaire and Éponine’s maths room as physically possible whilst still being on the school grounds and, so, because of this, the two of them were officially the last to arrive.

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” came Courfeyrac’s voice shrilly the moment they entered the room. All eyes turned to him. He continued. “Can people _please _stop showing up to meetings injured? You’ll give poor Joly a heart attack!” Joly did look as though he was fighting off an urge to go to Éponine and ask one thousand questions very, very quickly about how she was feeling.

“I’m okay, Joly,” she reassured him over the classroom. Musichetta stroked Joly’s hand comfortingly and Joly returned to berating Bossuet for picking at the many plasters on his hands.

Grantaire peeled away from Éponine to go and greet Enjolras, leaving Éponine to settle in her usual seat. She had barely been sat down for a moment before Combeferre wandered over rather gingerly, holding a rather sizable stack of paper. Without saying a word, he placed down the stack, splitting it into three separate piles on the desk in front of her.

“This pile is notes from the lessons that you missed,” he said pointing to the largest of the three stacks, “This one is the classwork that you missed,” he pointed to the smallest, “And, this one,” he said, pointing at the final stack, “is the homework. I made sure all of the due dates are written on them so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Éponine was flabbergasted. Combeferre himself looked rather embarrassed.

“But…” Éponine began, floundering for words, “How? You’re not in either of these classes…”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he pushed his glasses up his nose, an action that Éponine couldn’t help but find incredibly adorable. Oh, no. “I just cashed in some outstanding favours with a couple of people in your classes.”

“Thank you. You know you didn’t have to do that, right? I would have managed just fine on my own.”

“I know,” he said, “I just wanted to.”

Now, there aren’t many people on the face of the earth that can say that they made the immovable object Ms Éponine Thénardier blush. Even fewer if you don’t count those that don’t know they made her blush. But, right then and there, as Combeferre smiled at her kindly, Éponine’s cheeks were aflame. She was grateful when Enjolras cleared his throat and the meeting began; she wasn’t sure how much longer she could have stood there, as red as a tomato in front of someone whom she had only recently realised she _might _have feelings for. Really, though, how long could anyone stay in that situation?

“Right, where were we on Friday?” Enjolras asked no one in particular. In an action that surprised exactly no one, Grantaire spoke up first, leaning back on his chair and a smirk on his face.

“We were talking about how we’re all going to die and the world’s governments are doing fuck all to stop it.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you, Grantaire. Climate change!” And the meeting began.

***

¹The events of Wednesday 20th November, as agreed unanimously by Les Amis de l’ABC, were not to be discussed _ever _unless the subject being discussed is how adorably surprised Grantaire looked in the pictures that Éponine took of his and Enjolras’s first kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about climate change, okay?
> 
> Also, I am loving writing Éponine/Combeferre. Seriously, this is only my second Les Mis fic and my first time properly writing Éponine/Combeferre and so far I just love it! Drop me a comment if you have any cute headcanons regarding those two because I seriously can't get enough!


	6. The Consequences of Administrative Errors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS - PANIC ATTACKS, CHILD ABUSE, SMOKING, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, DEAD POETS SOCIETY SPOILERS
> 
> Seriously, go watch Dead Poets Society - even if you already have, go watch it again - because it's fucking amazing and I spoil one of the biggest parts of the ending here so be warned!
> 
> Enjoy!

Three weeks passed for Les Amis in a whirlwind of not very much happening to interest them. The most interesting thing to happen was probably Joly’s return from his holiday in France. And that’s saying something considering that Joly had gone to France on holiday at the same time every year since he was a child, always returning the same way he had gone: pale, eager to work but otherwise just happy to be there.

Finally, it was the last week before the Christmas holidays and everyone, and I mean everyone, was beginning to get just a tad excited for the impending holidays. Even Grantaire, who didn’t really celebrate anything, found himself swept up in the excitement and fervour surrounding December. Honestly, though, he just needed the break. Having your significant other tutor you in a subject you hate isn’t exactly the delight that he’d been hoping for. There was less making out, less snuggling on the couch and more quadratic equations that barely made any sense and groaning if frustration at why the fuck maths exists in the first place. Yeah, he needed a break.

It being a Friday, Grantaire had art fourth period, obviously his favourite subject, and then a free before the ABC meeting after school. If he was being honest, Friday was his favourite day of the week.

About fifteen minutes into the art lesson, Madame Magloire’s phone rang. That in of itself was rather startling. You see, Madame Magloire’s art room is something of a sanctuary for many students – and especially Grantaire – with its drapes made from great swathes of floaty fabric, ever-changing playlist constantly playing in the background at a low level, and beanbags of every colour scattered around the room; it was a place that offered great comfort and tranquillity to all those who needed it. So, when the shrill tone of the phone tore through this comfortable haze, Grantaire almost jumped out of his skin from the shock.

She nodded to the caller, glancing over to Grantaire, who had gone back to his painting¹, and sighed in a way reminiscent of a long-suffering parent being told their child got in trouble for talking back to a teacher again. She put the phone down with the same mildly frustrated air she had as she looked at Grantaire and made her way over to him.

“R?” she asked in a low tone when she reached him, “I thought you were done with getting in trouble.”

Grantaire looked up at her from his easel.

“I am!” he said indignantly, “I haven’t done anything!”

Madame Magloire simply sighed and nodded. _Innocent until proven guilty, _she thought.

Madame Magloire had taught Grantaire longer than any other of her A-Level students. As a way to get out of the house when he was in secondary school, Grantaire began attending an art class she ran in town. At the class, Grantaire was the youngest pupil by quite a margin, the majority of the other pupils were retirees just looking for something fun to fill their evenings with, but he was by far the most talented. Madame Magloire was struck by his talent every time she held a class. This child was no more than twelve years old, but some of the things he produced could easily beat what he A-Level students produced. Seeing what he could create, she felt it was her duty to nurture this young talent and, so, began to tutor him more closely.

The art classes would only be run for two more years – the city tore down the building they held it in – but Madame Magloire had done her duty. She had watched Grantaire’s skill blossom into something almost incomprehensibly brilliant. She was sure he was going to be a world-class artist one day and she was not going to let any petty disagreements with the school administration risk that.

“Valjean wants to see you in his office,” she said, glancing at the easel her gaze softened, “That is wonderful, R. Enjolras is very lucky.”

Grantaire blushed slightly and ducked his head to pack up his things. He just hoped that Enjolras would agree.

***

It could be expected for Grantaire to feel some semblance of déjavu as he knocked on Valjean’s door but, to be honest, he had been there so often that – even after his month-long hiatus from being sent to the office – it felt like settling back into an old routine. The feeling of the wood under his knuckles as he rapped on the door was familiar and, in a weird way, somewhat comforting.

“Come in, R.” Came Valjean’s voice through the door.

From there, Grantaire knew the drill: sit in the chair, be interrogated about whatever he did that was apparently unacceptable, and be punished or promise not to do it again. The only part of it that he was _unfamiliar _with was not actually knowing what he had done in the first place. Usually, he could at least take an educated guess. This time, though, he didn’t have a clue.

“Do you have any idea why you’re here, R?” Valjean asked.

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? To Grantaire’s surprise, Valjean sounded genuinely curious, not at all like he was fishing for an early confession.

“No,” he replied, “Not really.”

Valjean seemed to decide something and leant back on his chair lazily.

“You have seemed happier in yourself recently. Perhaps it’s not my place to say, but it seems like Enjolras has been good for you.” Grantaire laughed, not sure quite what Valjean was hinting at if he was hinting at anything at all.

“I am happier.” It was a realisation for Grantaire in that moment, he hadn’t really thought about it, but, yes, he had felt happier in the last month or so than he had felt in a very long time. “So...” he thought about asking Valjean why he was there but, to be frank, he didn’t want to skip to the part of the conversation where he gets detention for a week. “What did you do with the money you won from Monsieur Javert?” Yes, it was a bit cheeky, but if he was already going to get in trouble for doing something – even if he didn’t know what said something was – what was one bit of cheek going to change?

Lucky for Grantaire, Valjean seemed to find the cheek funny and somewhat endearing.

“I didn’t get any of it in the end. Cosette got half and I put the rest in the collection tin outside the cathedral in town.”

Grantaire nearly choked with laughter.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, “I can’t help but feel like, you know, out of me and Enjolras, Cosette has got more out of our relationship than we have!” He had been expecting Valjean to laugh along with him, but he just seemed confused.

“How do you mean?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing and a small, rare frown appearing on his face.

Now, while it may have been tempting for him to rat out Cosette and get a little vengeance for her being unbelievably good at predicting the wayward relationships of her friends, Grantaire was no snitch. Not to mention the fact that he wasn’t actually even mildly annoyed with her in any way. Sure, it was kind of frustrating how accurately she had managed to predict when exactly the years of romantic tension between him and Enjolras would finally burst like a cracked dam, but when offered an opportunity to get revenge, Grantaire didn’t even need to think before he covered for her. He wasn’t even particularly close to Cosette specifically, it was just the kind of person he was.

“Ah, nothing. It doesn’t matter.” He could tell Valjean didn’t buy it. Nevertheless, he didn’t pry or push, it seemed he had something else on his mind. It may have taken him a couple of minutes, but when Grantaire saw this is was glaringly obvious; he almost felt stupid for having missed it and the smile faded from his face.

“I’m not here for small talk, am I, Monsieur Valjean?”

“No, R, you’re not.” He leant forward in his chair and folded his hands. If Grantaire didn’t know any better, he would have said that Valjean looked like he felt guilty. Of course, Grantaire _did _know better. I mean, of course he knew better. Monsieur Valjean was a saint! The guy had never done anything wrong ever in his life! What could he have possibly done to make him feel guilty!

“The real reason I brought you here today is something of a… an administrative error.”

“Okay…?” Grantaire had no clue where Valjean was leading with this but it was sure as hell making him nervous.

“When you came up to this sixth form, you chose to do art, economics, and core maths. A good mixture of subjects, two of which you are excelling in and the other not so much, but your maths grades have been improving as of late. I am telling you this so that you know that none of this is your fault.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“No, I can’t imagine you do.” Grantaire wasn’t sure what to make of that. “You see, core maths is a subject offered to students doing other maths-based subjects. You already knew that, of course.

“The thing is, it is not a full subject. It’s a sort of half-subject meant to aid those taking other maths-heavy subjects. You were never supposed to be able to take it as a full subject. There must have been some kind of administrative error during the application process in which this wasn’t flagged as a problem.”

Grantaire was struggling to wrap his head around it all. So, what? What did this mean? Was he not going to be able to get into university?

“Don’t panic, R. We can deal with this relatively easily.” He hadn’t even noticed that he was beginning to hyperventilate until he felt Valjean’s steady headrest firmly on his shoulder. “Breathe, son.”

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Soon, he was breathing as normal once more.

“There is an easy fix for this, R. It doesn’t have to be a big thing for you.”

“What do I have to do?”

Valjean slid a piece of paper over the desk apologetically.

“These are the only subjects for which your timetable and your GCSE grades will work,” he paused and glanced at Grantaire with a sorry look in his kind eyes, but Grantaire was too busy staring down in horror at the list of subjects.

Politics, Engineering, English Literature, Drama. That’s what the paper said.

“Please take some time to think it over, R.” Grantaire stood up to leave the room, not caring that he had not officially been dismissed. He reached for the door handle with a shaking hand but paused when Valjean spoke again, this time even more quietly.

“I know you’ve been having a hard time recently, R. I’m not completely sure why, but I can tell that something isn’t right. Don’t worry,” he said, noting the sceptical expression on Grantaire’s face, no doubt something he had picked up from Éponine, “I’m not going to pry and I’m not going to tell you that if you ever need to talk I’m here because you already know that and I know that you won’t come and talk to me. I just want you to know that, and I’m aware that it doesn’t help much, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that this is happening on top of whatever you’re already dealing with and I’m sorry that I didn’t see something was amiss sooner.”

Grantaire simply nodded. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. It wasn’t pity, whatever it was. It was more sincere than that. As though the thought of seeing one of his pupils go through hardships caused him genuine pain. Depressing though it may sound, it genuinely hadn’t occurred to Grantaire that adults – despite pretty much being one himself – actually could care that much about kids who were their own, or, perhaps, even ones that were theirs. It was all too much to process and, so, Grantaire simply nodded.

Without him asking them to, his feet carried him to the park. He didn’t spare a thought for his canvas on his easel and his bag still lying on the floor in the art room, they didn’t seem to matter in the moment. He felt numb. He had been carrying on just fine, even, perhaps, slightly better than fine since he and Enjolras had managed to pull their heads out of their asses, but he felt as though the universe had just pulled the rug out from under him and he was in free fall.

To Grantaire’s immense relief, Jehan was sitting on their usual spot of moss, watching how the light filtered through the canopy of leaves above, a cigarette dangling carelessly from their pale fingers. Grantaire wasn’t sure whether they had noticed him staggering over, as though in a daze, but they didn’t make any move to ask whether he was okay.

Then Grantaire went crashing down to the ground. His knees just gave out as he reached Jehan and he found himself on the floor with his head buried in their lap.

Uncontrollable sobs suddenly began to rip from his throat. He hadn’t realised quite how pent up he was until it all came flooding out in an overwhelming tsunami of emotion. Tears streamed down his cheeks in burning rivulets and he found himself making painful, guttural sounds every time another wave hit him. It was strange, really, Grantaire couldn’t remember _ever _crying like that before. Or, at least, not since he was a baby. It was such an unfamiliar sensation that before long he found himself retching with the strain it was putting on him. He was stretching muscles he hadn’t used since he was an infant in the worst kind of way, and he hated every single second of it.

Ever the persistently supportive friend they were, Jehan didn’t make any move to say anything or demand answers or really anything other than stroke Grantaire’s hair comfortingly and occasionally taking a drag of their cigarette.

“Feel a bit better now?” they asked once Grantaire had finally stopped shaking.

Grantaire went to respond but found that he had no voice. His face itched from the tears, his throat hurt from the sobbing, his stomach ached from the retching, and a headache was beginning to form at the front of his brain from the dehydration. The after-effects almost made him wish he was still crying.

He sat up next to Jehan on the rather comfortable mound of moss that they frequently sat on. In fact, it was the very same knoll that Jehan was sitting on in Enjolras’s favourite one of Grantaire’s paintings. They sat together in silence. The only thing to change in the following two minutes of silence would be Jehan gently placing a cigarette between Grantaire’s lips and holding up the lighter for permission. Seeing as he still had no voice, he merely nodded.

It had been around three months since Grantaire had had a cigarette. He hadn’t made a conscious choice to stop smoking; he just had stopped around a year previously and only had one every so often when he really needed to calm his nerves. Like at the moment, when he was so drained, physically and emotionally, that he couldn’t even answer a simple yes or no question.

As he took a long drag on the cigarette, Grantaire handed the rather scrunched up list that Valjean had given him to Jehan.

“Ah,” they said as though everything suddenly made perfect sense.

“Apparently,” he said, pausing to clear his throat when his voice came out hoarse and cracking, “There was some kind of ‘administrative error’ and now I have to take another subject alongside the ones I’m already doing because, apparently, the universe fucking hates me.”

“Oh, R.”

“Yeah.” Grantaire’s tone wasn’t bitter. Not at all. Not even a slight bit of bitterness.

Yeah, okay. He was bitter.

“Hey, at least drama’s on here! Courf and I both do drama, so you wouldn’t be alone. Plus, we haven’t done anything that can’t be caught up on easily enough!” They sounded so hopeful, it almost broke Grantaire’s heart to say no.

“I’m sorry, Jehan. I can’t.”

“Of course you can! Valjean will grant you special dispensation to get in so you don’t need to have taken Drama at GCSE!”

They weren’t getting the point. Jehan had either no idea or had forgotten why Grantaire refused to take part in any of the plays and musicals that they had done in the previous four years. Was Grantaire really going to tell them? Well, there seemed to be no way around it.

Had Grantaire known how deep they would end up delving together, he might never have opened his mouth and gone with the path that his better judgment was screaming at him desperately.

“You know what happened at the play in year eight, right?”

Jehan seemed to be struck by recognition but Grantaire found himself forging forward nevertheless.

“Well, that wasn’t the end of it. When he got me home, let’s just say that the next few hours weren’t what you would call cosy. It was bad, Jehan. Hell, I couldn’t even show my face at school for the next week because everyone’d know from the bruises what’d happened.”

“R,” Jehan cut him off, “You know you’re not obligated to tell me any of this, right? You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I know. I want to, though,” and, surprisingly, that was the truth. Not that anyone can lie to Jehan in the first place, but it genuinely surprised Grantaire that he did, in fact, want to. He was going to tell Jehan something he had never told anyone. Not even Éponine.

“That’s not the worst bit, though,” he continued, “The worst bit came after. After he was done beating me up, he sent me to my room. I went gladly, obviously. I sat in the corner of my room for three hours before I did anything. I could _hear _his voice in my head. He was saying the usual stuff: how he wouldn’t have a fag for a son, how, while I was under his roof, I would act like a real man, how it was no wonder my mum left if she saw what a disappointment I was, that kind of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary, but… I don’t know… It really got to me…”

He trailed off and Jehan placed their hand on his cheek and nodded encouragingly.

“It’s okay, R. The way it looks from here, and correct me if I’m wrong, the play was important to you and you wanted your father to be proud of you. You wanted him to see it and for everything to magically be okay. And it wasn’t.”

“Something like that,” he said gruffly, stubbing out his cigarette, trying to blink away more tears that were threatening to spill once again. “I wanted… I wanted to just not be where I was. I thought about going to Éponine’s, but I would never be able to sneak past my dad. Still, I went to the window and thought about sneaking out á la every single 80’s teen movie ever. I even opened it and stared down to the concrete below. Keep in mind that my dad had forced me to take off my costume shirt because it was apparently ridiculous, so I was standing at my open window, two storeys up, in December without a shirt on, after being dragged by the back of my neck home from the play I had just taken part in by my furious father. I felt like Neil from Dead Poets Society. I thought about him and how I felt just as trapped as he did and how completely helpless I felt… and I thought about what he—”

Grantaire’s voiced cracked then and Jehan threw themself across him in a fierce embrace.

In

Out

In

Out

In

Out

He found his voice once again.

“I didn’t do it, obviously. I couldn’t fully commit to the Dead Poets Society theme. I don’t have a gun, so what’s the point.” He chuckled dryly. There he went again, covering an uncomfortable serious situation with humour to distract from how awful it really was. He swallowed before continuing. And he did _have _to continue. Jehan deserved to know.

“No, there were a few reasons I didn’t do it. You guys, my dad, and, surprisingly Dead Poets Society again.

“I thought about what happened after Neil died in the movie. You know, the scene where they’re all following Todd through the snow. I thought about how distraught they all were. I thought about Ponine and how much I love her and how sad she would be, but she would just bottle it all up and refuse to deal with it. I thought about Rel and about how angry he would get and how he’d only just stopped getting detentions for getting into fights. I thought about you. You who feels everything so intensely and who we all hate to make cry because being the cause of your unhappiness is like watching a thousand puppies die at once. I thought about Enjolras. I wasn’t sure if he’d be sad. I knew he’d be angry, though. He’d be angry at me most of all. You know, for giving up so easily. For letting my dad win.

“Then, I realised. If I did it, I _would_ be letting him win. I’d be showing my dad that he’d beaten mentally as well as physically and I did not want to let the bastard win.”

There was silence for a moment while Jehan took everything in. The words hung in the air like dice ready to fall.

“Thank you for telling me, R. I want you to know that I am so, so proud of you for having the guts to still be here to tell me what you just did. Many people would not have been so brave.” They placed a small, comforting kiss on Grantaire’s forehead².

“We don’t have to talk about your subjects right now if you don’t want, but I will say that if you choose to do drama again, I, and all of the others, will make sure that you are completely safe. Your father is no longer a part of your life. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“I sort of do,” Grantaire said, reaching into his pocket. In for a penny, in for a pound. No pun intended. “When we went to clear my stuff out of the house, I stole this from his stash. He has to notice sooner or later that it’s missing and, when he does, he will come after me.”

Jehan held out their hand and Grantaire placed the roll of money in it.

“I will keep this safe, R. No, I’m not going to argue with you about this. You took it and I’m sure you have a good reason why you need it, but I’m going to keep it until you need it immediately because, if he comes to find you like you think he will, you are in more danger with it on you.”

Grantaire didn’t argue. To be honest, he was still thinking about the drama thing. The money stashed away once again, Jehan slipped into babbling on about some anthology they’d found and Grantaire found himself seriously considering drama.

Just for clarity, Politics, English Literature, and Engineering were all off the table. They were never on the table. The table is so far away from them that they are in Grimsby and the table is Bangkok. Let’s go over why.

Politics – Yes, Enjolras was in that class, but Javert was the one teaching it. Yeah, no, not dealing with that nightmare situation.

English Literature – At the beginning of sixth form, Grantaire promised himself to never be in a class where debate happens with Éponine ever again. He still hadn’t recovered from one fierce one about Pride and Prejudice in year nine.

Engineering – You’re kidding, right? Maths and Physics? Together? It doesn’t matter how much art is involved, Grantaire was more likely to _volunteer _for six months of detention with Javert than to do that shit.

Compared to the other options, drama seemed almost sensible.

“Okay,” he said finally, drawing Jehan’s attention once again.

“'Okay'? I’d say William Blake’s presentation of how capitalism ruins lives is a little more than ‘okay’. Thought-provoking, revolutionary, outst—”

“I mean,” Grantaire cut them off, “'Okay’ as in ‘Okay, I’ll take drama again.'”

Before that moment, Grantaire wasn’t sure that Jehan was capable of squealing with delight, but there you go.

“Yay! Let’s go tell Valjean!” Grantaire then found himself being pulled upwards by a surge of strength that he would have not guessed that Jehan would have. “Wait,” they said suddenly, rooting around in their pockets for something. “Ah! Here we are!” They pulled out a pack of gum that Grantaire expected hadn’t been used in a while. _Fresh Mint _it said brightly – if a little battered – on the side. Oh. _Oh. _He smelled his breath. Surely it wasn’t that bad! After all, he only had half of the one he had!

Yeah, okay. It was bad.

Gum in his mouth, they walked back towards the school just as the bell for final period rang, only just audible in the distance. He was slightly surprised that they had managed to completely skip lunch and not notice, but he noticed then. His stomach rumbled and he regretted not having his breakdown in the canteen. Jehan held out a cereal bar and Grantaire began to wonder whether they were psychic. Probably.

***

“When I said that you should take some time, R, I meant the Christmas break! Not lunch!” his words were admonishing, but his expression was anything but. Valjean was smiling. 

Grantaire shrugged, a small smile playing about his features, and turned to the door to leave the office when Valjean called him back around.

“R,” Grantaire turned and thanked God for his boxing reflexes as a mint came flying towards his face, “That gum isn’t helping as much as you think it is.”

“I’m sorry, Sir. I don’t know what you mean,” it was a terrible lie and Valjean saw through it immediately. He raised an eyebrow sceptically but couldn’t immediately say anything as the bell signalling the end of the school day rang out and would have drowned out whatever criticism he was about to dish out. Saved by the bell Grantaire was not; the moment it was over, Valjean began to speak once again. Though, his expression didn’t indicate any irritation or grumpiness, so who knows. 

“During the ’80s, while I was in university, I worked at a bar in Paris. I know cigarette smoke when I smell it. Don’t worry,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “I’m not going to do anything, I’m merely suggesting that your boyfriend, whom I happen to know is very anti-tobacco-lobby, may not appreciate it.” He paused then and looked Grantaire in the eye with all of his headteacher authority and said seriously, “Take the mint.”

***

By the time Grantaire and Jehan – who had waited outside Valjean’s office for him – reached Friday’s ABC meeting room, they were already five minutes into a discussion about how fucked up capitalism is.

As they wandered through the door, Grantaire felt like Norm from ‘Cheers’. There was a chorus of ‘Grantaire’ and ‘Jehan’ from everybody. Well, everybody but Enjolras. He simply marched over to Grantaire and pulled him into a fierce hug.

“So I guess that means Éponine told you about the bug in Valjean’s office, then,” Grantaire said into the crook of Enjolras’s neck.

“Are you okay? No, of course, you’re not okay. Stupid question. Please tell me if there is anything I can do to help with choosing your subject. Or even just to help distracting you when you need a break. Please, I want to hel—”

He was cut off by Grantaire kissing him chastely on the lips.

Naturally, their friends heckled good-naturedly in the background, but neither of them cared. Once more they were in their own little bubble of sickening love. Ugh. 

“It’s okay, Apollo. It’s all sorted. But I love you for trying to help anyway.”

“Love you too.” This time Enjolras was the one to kiss Grantaire. More heckling inevitably came. “What did you take in the end, then?”

“Drama.”

Enjolras felt his eyebrows shoot up of their own volition.

“And you’re… sure about that? After what happened in year eight?”

“Yeah,” he surprised himself by how sure he was, actually, “He’s not a part of my life anymore and I’m not going to let him keep me from doing what I want anymore. I’m not going to let him win.”

Over the years, Grantaire had spent quite a lot of time cataloguing Enjolras’s various expressions in his mind and thus had become quite good at deciphering them. His expertise was tested by the almost bemused look that appeared on his boyfriend’s face just then. Grantaire reading Enjolras’s expressions was not dissimilar to a sommelier at a wine tasting. _Yes, I’m detecting notes of surprise, pride, and… ooh! A pinch of arousal! _Yes, Grantaire would definitely remind him of that in a later makeout session.

“Hey, guys!” Éponine called, breaking them out of their bout of rather intense eyesex, “Not that we don’t all love watching the soap opera that is your relationship, but I’d quite like to bitch about capitalism some more and the cleaners are going to kick us out in half an hour.”

Enjolras still hadn’t torn his eyes away from Grantaire but responded nevertheless.

“Hm? Oh, yeah. Capitalism,” he said finally looking back to his friends, “Pretty fucked up, right?”

***

¹A present for Enjolras. He was sure that he had left it a bit close with regards to getting it done in time, but Grantaire would be damned if he didn’t get his boyfriend’s Christmas present done in time.

²Jehan forehead kisses are the best kind of forehead kisses. You see, Jehan kisses everybody on the cheek. That’s just how they operate. If you’re Courfeyrac you also occasionally get nose kisses, but Jehan only kisses people on the forehead when they’re proud of you. Getting a forehead kiss from Jehan means that you have accomplished something so magnificent and awe-inspiring that they don’t think that words can do it justice. That doesn’t mean they won’t try to use words too, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I won't be able to upload next week, but as a thank you for being so patient with me the next chapter is going to be some lovely Christmas and Hanukkah fluff which will be considerably more delightful to write than the heavy stuff in this one (I legit cried so much while writing this one).
> 
> I've also decided to do a question of the day type thing - but, you know, question of the chapter instead - so, for today's question, what is your opinion on forehead kisses? I personally adore them, they're just so comforting.
> 
> Thank you for your patience!


	7. Neige Tombe á St Michel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanukkah/Christmas together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm back! I took a break for the beginning of the academic year but I'm back now and ready to get on with the story! As a thank you for being so patient with me, this chapter is super fluffy and probably the longest yet. By my estimate, it is almost 6k so do with that what you will! 
> 
> Enjoy!

Grantaire was cold. That was his first thought when he awoke on 26th December.

As good as Éponine’s reasoning for refusing to turn on the heating was, it didn’t make Grantaire any less cold or grumpy in the mornings. Not to mention that all of his _actually_ warm jumpers – as opposed to all of the deceptively thin ones – seemed to be going missing. Two guesses for who was taking them. I’ll give you a clue: his name rhymes with Shmonjolras. The inconvenient, though quite endearing, thievery aside, they had been managing overnight since before the end of term by huddling together in their shared (technically Éponine’s) bed under only a summer-weight duvet, both of them having agreed to let Gavroche have the heavier quilt and all of their blankets. It was a sweet gesture but one that left them shivering together during the coldest hours of the night.

Still, despite the icicles growing on the tips of their noses, they were happy to have some time off school and happy that it was Hanukkah time once again.

Hanukkah in the Thénardier household was a somewhat modest affair.

Their miniature hanukkiah was no bigger than Gavroche’s hand and had to be filled with birthday candles instead of real ones but it nevertheless held pride of place in the middle of the otherwise barren mantlepiece. The day Gavroche brought it home from one of his “shopping” trips in the artsy quarter of St Michel, Éponine had felt a strange burst of pride that he had decided to steal that. You see, he had heard her complaining to Grantaire over the phone one evening that their parents wouldn’t let them celebrate Hanukkah properly, they wouldn’t even let her get a menorah! Being only ten at the time, he had found it incredibly easy to sneak into the cake decorating shop, pretend to browse for a little while, slip the miniature menorah into his pocket, continue pretending to look at the fondant with a pensive look and then slip out of the shop before the shop assistant even knew something was wrong.

They never had a big meal, or even just something smaller like latkes, because the combined ineptitude of the two Thénardier children together in a kitchen would make the oven catch on fire out of sheer nervousness – nervousness on the part of the oven, not those two maniacs – before they had even begun. The closest they got to having latkes at Hanukkah was the massive bag of _Walkers’ Sensations_ they shared every year.

That was, of course, before the culinarily competent Grantaire began to join them during that time of year. He never said exactly why he stopped spending the holidays at his own house, but neither Éponine nor Gavroche had any reason to complain once recipes were googled. The first time he had turned up on their doorstep the day before the beginning of Hanukkah with a bag of ingredients, he looked so miserable with the entire world – also he seemed like he was either hungover or still drunk from the night before¹ - and Éponine hadn’t had the heart to tell him that Hanukkah was still a day away. Obviously, the latkes had been amazing. Surprising, really, especially considering that he had never eaten one himself previously, but never look a gift in the horse or whatever. The next year, latkes were made again, but, and don’t ask Éponine how because she has no idea but, Grantaire had also shown up with a fine cut of beef brisket. Yeah, really. It had been the best brisket that she had ever had. Well, it had been the only brisket she had ever had, but the point still stands it was fucking delicious.

Once Grantaire had ben firmly ingrained in their Hanukkah festivities, the Thénardier’s (minus the parents, obviously) began to love that time of year in a way that no one of the three had before. It was their own time to have fun and eat fried food and try and fail to make origami dreidels from a YouTube tutorial and not think about how screwed up their lives really were.

Despite all of the joy that came with Hanukkah for the three of them, one-third of their triumvirate still awoke grumpy, cold and wishing that his boyfriend’s adorable habit of thievery didn’t leave him with numb fingers.

Éponine must’ve heard his groans of discomfort as he desperately rubbed his frozen hands together and taken pity on him because, suddenly, she appeared at the door, two mugs in hand, like some magical caffeine faerie. Rather, considering how tired and bedraggled she still looked having woken up herself no more than half an hour previously, caffeine goblin would probably be more accurate.

“Oh, you are fucking magical,” he gasped out, making grabby motions for one of the steaming cups.

“I’m aware,” she responded curtly as she handed over the mug in her right hand and taking a long sip from her own.

A few moments passed in relative silence in which Grantaire eagerly gulped down a mouthful of coffee, regretted it, spluttered a bit and proceeded to sip it his coffee, too desperate for the caffeine to stop completely but only somewhat discouraged by the burns on the back of his throat. 

“How long until the hoard descends?” he asked finally asked, two-thirds of his coffee now gone.

“About two hours but I figured you’d want to get up early to do the latkes.” Grantaire groaned at that.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make latkes for all of their friends, really, he did, but it was eight o’clock in the morning and, to be honest, it felt a little too early to be furiously grating potatoes and onions and making enough latkes – they didn’t have the ingredients to make anything else – to feed fourteen people all day until someone inevitably gets hungry and orders a Chinese takeaway. On the other hand, the boiling oil would certainly warm Grantaire up.

His decision was made the moment his bare feet hit the freezing rug by the bed and, mere minutes later, he and Gavroche (he had been roped in to help by the promise of sweets later if he did) were crowded around the kitchen sink, frantically peeling potatoes as quickly as humanly possible.

***

Despite having met Éponine when he was six years old, over the eleven years they had technically known each other, Enjolras had never been to her house even once. He was aware that she had moved to the current one when she was fourteen – she had come into a meeting complaining about how her parents wouldn’t shut up about stamp duty – but, beyond that, he had heard nothing regarding the subject since and assumed that everything was sorted. Now, though, as he approached the rather barren front garden flanked by Combeferre and Courfeyrac, he couldn’t help but be surprised at the size of the house.

The wealth of Monsieur and Madame Thénardier had fluctuated greatly over the years and Enjolras had noticed that every time he saw them or even just heard about them, they both had new careers. One month it could be running a pub in the next village and the next an entirely new business venture entirely. It baffled him as it was. Little did he know the full extent of their monetary pursuits.

Because of this, Enjolras had always assumed that they weren’t the wealthiest people, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been told that they were living paycheque to paycheque.

Evidently, however, he had been mistaken.

The house was clearly of a considerable size, even from the outside, and, though he couldn’t see very far into the back garden, he would be willing to put money on the fact that it was also pretty sizable. It looked like a relatively new build, going by the windows (or, at least, that was what Combeferre said), but they were dirty and looked as though they had seen better days and very much betrayed the state of the inside of the house.

Courfeyrac eagerly pressed the doorbell, his face falling slightly when it did not emit the shrill noise he had clearly been expecting.

“Just knock, Courf,” Combeferre reasoned, stifling a yawn in the crook of his elbow.

“But there’s a bell for a reason!” Courfeyrac insisted, pressing at the bell once more.

“It clearly doesn’t work, though,” Enjolras pointed out.

“Fine,” he groaned, disappointed, knocking a quirky rhythm into the glass pane of the door.

On the other side, there was what sounded like a small scuffle. Enjolras decided it was likely just Éponine knocking something over on her way to the door if the string of curses easily audible through the plastic of the door was anything to go by, but he raised his eyebrows at the commotion all the same. The door flew open barely a moment later, revealing a rather tired looking Éponine as she kicked at a pile of shoes that was falling over. Ah. That had been the source of the expletives.

“Hi. Enjolras you need to go help R with the cooking and Courf you need to go and distract Gavroche while he helps. It is a fucking nightmare in that kitchen, let me tell you.”

“Nice to see you too, Ép,” Courfeyrac said, an unstoppable smile on his face as he pulled her in for a tight hug. “Happy Hanukkah!” he said brightly into her hair.

“Happy Hanukkah!” Combeferre and Enjolras chorused behind them. Courfeyrac pulled away still smiling and disappeared into the house, no doubt in search of Gavroche, and Combeferre took his place hugging Éponine.

Enjolras looked between them with an eyebrow raised amusedly. While he had been pining for Grantaire, before they had got together, Combeferre and Courfeyrac had playfully chided him for his lingering, longing gazes at Grantaire, saying “God, could you _be _more obvious?!” Now, it might have been his imagination, but he couldn’t help but note how _lingering _the hug was. Seriously, he was getting a real urge to exclaim “God, could you _be _more obvious?!” in the same tone he clearly remembered hearing directed at him.

Considering the still-embracing people in the doorway, Enjolras was rather impressed that he managed to slip passed unnoticed and into the house. He was so pleased with himself, in fact, that he managed to let the few flakes of snow dropping to the ground fall unnoticed.

Whilst the outside had been, yes, a little shabby, but, otherwise, rather simplistic and modern, the inside was chaos by comparison. The shoes that Éponine had been wrestling with before opening the door were scattered about from her kick and Enjolras had to be careful where he put his feet or else he was sure to trip over one of Gavroche’s seemingly infinite supply of trainers. Safe from the impromptu obstacle course, he paused to take in the house around him.

At first glance, it was pretty standard of what you would expect from a modern-ish family home. It had plain white walls, a laminate flooring made to look like wood, a carpeted staircase leading upstairs and plain wood doorways leading to the different rooms. But, upon closer inspection, Enjolras noticed that the paint was peeling in places, the laminate was coming away from the concrete floor underneath in the corners where they obviously hadn’t been stuck down properly, the carpet of the stairs was mucky and was beginning to look distinctly trampled from use and some of the doorways were splintering. He felt as though he was watching a house fall into disrepair in real-time and it made him sad to think that there was nothing he could do to help. Still, he continued across the hallway towards where he could hear grainy music pouring from a speaker, assuming that was where he would find Grantaire, and tried to ignore the fact that there were no photos of Éponine or Gavroche around – for some reason, it had unsettled him greatly seeing how bare the walls were, as though no one had ever lived in the house.

Enjolras forgot his concerns, however, as he entered the kitchen. The sight of Grantaire expertly chopping onions – and I mean expertly, the guy looked like a tv chef the way he was slicing each bit so thin it was translucent – so confident working with the knife did things to his libido that he wouldn’t have been able to predict. It was his hands okay! Every single movement was confident and sure of itself and it took a rather embarrassing amount of effort for Enjolras to quash the heat that was beginning to pool in his belly.

Instead, he settled for wrapping his arms around his boyfriend from behind. Perhaps, making Grantaire jump while he was holding a really rather large knife wasn’t the best idea, but, luckily, no blood was spilt. The knife simply clattered to the chopping board when Grantaire – rather adorably – startled at the sudden embrace.

“You’re early,” he stated simply, settling against Enjolras.

“Yes, well, boxing day with my parents is not what you would call the height of enjoyment.”

“Ah. It’s nice to know that you _enjoy _me.” Grantaire turned towards Enjolras and leant back against the kitchen counter, his eyebrows quirked suggestively and a smirk on his face.

“Oh, you know what I mean! They are the dullest people on the planet and I would much rather be here with you!” he exclaimed before smiling mischievously. “Besides, it’s not a crime for me to _enjoy _my boyfriend,” he pointed out, leaning forward so that his lips were only an inch from Grantaire’s.

“No,” Grantaire said pensively, “I suppose it’s not.”

He surged forward, meeting Enjolras halfway, the kiss quickly deepening until they were fully making out against the kitchen counter.

Was that a cliché? It certainly felt like a cliché to Grantaire as the countertop pressed uncomfortably into his back. It felt like a dumb, domestic cliché and – not that he would admit it – but he loved every second of it. He explored Enjolras’s mouth and pulled him flush against him with handfuls of the material of the back of his jacket and Enjolras eagerly reciprocated, pushing against him to the point where they almost fell onto the countertop completely.

Now, that would have been a cliché.

Unfortunately, their little make-out session was broken up by Courfeyrac piggy-backing Gavroche into the room at which point Gavroche exclaimed in disgust.

“Hey, jackasses!” he shouted, successfully getting their attention away from each other and onto him, “We eat in here!”

“Yeah,” Courfeyrac joined in, “Speaking as someone who is going to be eating food made in this kitchen all day, I’d rather if you would keep the surfaces clean of bodily fluids!”

“Courf!” Enjolras admonished, turning pink. Grantaire merely laughed and turned back to the chopping board.

“Look,” he said, “You’re just going to have to trust that I will not purposely sabotage your food. I cannot physically promise any more than that.”

That seemed to satisfy the both of them as, after a moment or two of narrowed eyes and sceptical faces, Gavroche suddenly yelled: “To the living room!” pointing to the door that joined the living room and the kitchen. Courfeyrac charged in the direction without hesitation and Enjolras was left marvelling at how childlike the two became when they were around each other for more than two minutes.

“Uh,” Enjolras began dumbly after a minute or so of easy silence, not quite sure where to begin, “Éponine said you could use some help with cooking?”

“You can cook?” Despite not being able to see Grantaire’s face, he could hear the scepticism in his voice. The immediate incredulous huff from Enjolras prompted him to continue. “I mean more than noodles.”

Enjolras mouth snapped shut almost instantly.

“Mmm…” Grantaire continued, “Thought not.” He seemed to take pity on Enjolras and his downtrodden expression, though, as, soon, he was pushing a couple of peeled potatoes and a cheese grater over to him. “Try to not grate your fingers. Significant blood loss is not sexy.”

In another situation entirely, Grantaire’s winks had sent pleasant shivers up his spine but, right then and there, all it elicited from Enjolras was a snort of laughter.

Yes, yet another domestic almost-cliché that Grantaire found himself enjoying way too much. No matter, though. It’s boxing day. Grantaire’s favourite day of the year and he was not going to let it be ruined by the part of his brain that was apparently run by a rom-com screenwriter form the 1990’s.

Every year since they were thirteen years old, Les Amis de l’ABC all gather together on boxing day to exchange gifts – even gifts for those of them who do not celebrate Christmas – and eat food until they can’t anymore. It began the year that Feuilly stayed with Courfeyrac over Christmas and discovered that, on boxing day every year, him, Combeferre and Enjolras gather to exchange gifts. He injected his gifts into the mix and suggested they invite round some others as then they could exchange gifts too. At the time, he had meant maybe two or three people. Of course, ‘some others’ very quickly became everyone. At first, it was just Jehan, Éponine and Grantaire, suggested by Courfeyrac, Combeferre and Enjolras respectively, each earning a small smirk and raised eyebrows from Feuilly. Then Éponine and Grantaire brought along Marius, Gavroche and Joly. Jehan brought Bahorel. Joly brought Bossuet. And suddenly everyone was crowed into Courfeyrac’s living room around a plastic tree exchanging gifts and laughing and enjoying themselves too much for Courfeyrac’s parents to mind even slightly about the noise disrupting what should have been their tranquil calm after the insanity of Christmas day.

By the time the oil was heating up in the pan, almost everyone else had arrived. The first to arrive – after the three of course – was Bahorel flanked by Jehan and Feuilly. Immediately they had all gravitated to Gavroche, Courfeyrac and Combeferre (who had finally managed to pull away from Éponine) in the living room who were, as far as Enjolras could tell, playing a very intense game of ‘the floor is lava’. Next was Cosette and Marius. They briefly greeted Enjolras and Grantaire in the kitchen but joined Éponine in the living room to watch Harry Potter, all three casually keeping their arms and legs on the sofa and away from the floor. It was made of lava after all. They were only waiting for Musichetta, Joly and Bossuet to show up when Grantaire dropped the first batch of latkes into the oil.

When there came a knock at the door five minutes later, Éponine gracefully leapt from the arm of the sofa she had been lounging on and out of the doorway onto the safe, lava-free flooring of the hallway.

Éponine doesn’t play ‘the floor is lava for fun’.

She’s not a child.

She plays to win.

A cold gust of wind blew snowflakes into the hallway as she opened the door.

“Sorry we’re late,” Bossuet apologised, tugging his woollen hat further over his bald head.

“We weren’t expecting the snow,” Musichetta clarified, smiling but clutching Joly’s hand tight.

“Right. Come on in, then.”

Bossuet was holding Joly’s other hand in the same way. Now, Éponine is many things, too many things to list – all of the unpleasant ones would probably come from herself – but stupid she is not. It is something that she had always prided herself on: she knows her friends. More specifically, she knows when her friends are struggling. So, just from the sight of Joly’s smile being just a little too tight as he was comforted subtly by his boyfriend and girlfriend, she knew that she would have three housemates that night.

Joly likes snow in theory, okay? The crisp, white image you see on Christmas cards in Oxfam? Great! In reality, though, the serene image gets a little distorted by the injury and illness statistics of the time of year. Seriously, sometimes, Joly wished he had never read that article on injuries at Christmas. He had never wanted to know how many people go to A&E a year from trying to decorate a Christmas tree naked. He still doesn’t! But he does! Usually, he could rely on the weather being too dim and dreary to produce any snow serious enough to cause any problems worth worrying over, but, that year, December just seemed to have decided to fuck him over. It’s a good thing he can _always _rely on his friends.

Bossuet joined the more active players of ‘the floor is lava’ while Joly and Musichetta reclined with Éponine, Cosette and Marius, watching as Harry learnt to fly.

Minutes later, a veritable _pile _of latkes came out on the biggest plate Grantaire could find in the depths of the kitchen cabinets. Grantaire placed the plate down and the hoard immediately descended onto it like vultures on a carcass. Any other time and Grantaire might have protested with something about leaving enough for him, but both Grantaire’s and Enjolras’s lips were pretty suspiciously swollen and Enjolras’s rather rumpled jacket couldn’t quite cover a deep-red hickey on his neck so they were frankly grateful for the distraction.

“Okay,” Éponine began after everyone had been munching on the latkes for a few minutes, “Light the candle and then we can do presents?” She looked around her friends for confirmation. Anyone who wasn’t distracted by the food – they were somehow even better than usual this year – nodded eagerly and began to shift about, preparing to get their gifts out of their bags.

The candles in the miniature menorah – as mentioned before – are the kind you stick in a birthday cake. They are tiny and last for about ten minutes before they burn down completely and have to be thrown away, along with all of the icing they pull away from the cake. Of course, the way they use them, the candles don’t get icing on them, but they do tend to burn down really fucking quickly. Of course, they get around this quite easily.

“Okay, Feuilly want to do the honours?” Éponine asked as they all gathered around the mantlepiece together. Feuilly nodded, turning to Jehan.

“Can I borrow your lighter?” he asked. The lighter was tossed over without a moment of hesitation.

“Uh…” he faltered standing in front of the menorah with only the middle candlelit, “Shit, what day is it?”

“Oh... Uh…” Éponine didn’t seem to know either. They looked helplessly to their friends. Fat load of use they were, they all just shrugged. At least Courfeyrac suggested that they look it up. Suddenly, though, Gavroche piped up, having been watching their lost faces amused for a minute or so.

“Fourth,” he supplied, an amused smirk on his face.

So, the candles were lit.

And then promptly extinguished once two minutes of awkward milling around on the part of the friends had gone by.

See, I told you they got around the problem of the candles burning down.

After that, they swiftly moved onto gifts.

Gift buying within the group always gets pretty complicated at Christmas, what with all the different group chats they have that just exclude one person so that the rest of them can talk about their gift without their knowledge. It’s a miracle that no one – read: Bossuet – has accidentally spoiled the surprise by sending messages to the wrong group chat. To keep the occasion as cheap and as simple as possible for all of them, the group devised a system to make sure that everyone gets something regardless of wealth. Every year in late November, everyone pitches in what they can to the gift fund. It averages out at about £20 per person, but Marius, uncaring for the wealth that he was born into, invariably puts around £50 in instead and Courfeyrac just loves Christmas too much to put anything less than £30 in.

Then the group chats come into play.

Exact natures of gifts are decided on and shopping trips are organised all without the target of the gift’s knowledge.

Modern technology truly is a wonder sometimes.

Anyway, back on the sofas and with mouth reloaded of their latkes, everyone began to pull out their gifts. That is, everyone except Grantaire who suddenly had to sprint up the stairs to get his gifts, only to return a minute later carrying two large packages. One a large, thin, square package and the second a smaller, though still cinder-block-sized, package, both of them wrapped in newspaper.

“Clockwise from Combeferre?” Enjolras suggested regarding the order of receiving gifts. An affirmative noise swept throughout the room and soon Grantaire was passing over the smaller of the two packages he had brought down from his – and Éponine’s – room.

Combeferre was truly delighted as he pulled away the paper to reveal a photo album filled with pinned-down replicas of all of the moth species native to Europe. Really, the guy looked like he might start crying tears of joy.

Next came Courfeyrac, who squealed with glee as he caught sight of the last-minute – that’s why they were budget-friendly – two tickets to go and see Moulin Rouge on the West End at the beginning of term. It is important to point out that Les Amis, sans Jehan and Courfeyrac, had carefully engineered their planning so that Jehan was the only one free to go with him. They were going to get those two together and if they all died trying then so be it.

Jehan stared in wonder at the antique novel presented to them by Combeferre. Published in 1789 in French – they are irritatingly gifted in languages – Jehan positively glowed and insisted on reading out some of the foreword to the group. Of course, they were all happy to listen.

Bossuet giggled with joy as he unwrapped the Lego Hogwarts set he had been handed by Éponine and Musichetta and Joly were so happy that he was happy that they didn’t even think about how many times he would inevitably stand on the pieces until much later.

Joly positively bristled with excitement after smelling the collection of bath bombs. Joly loves baths. He just does and any excuse to have more baths will bring him more joy than almost anything else.

Musichetta thanked everyone profusely for her new sewing machine, her old one had died two weeks before and she was already suffering without one, and promised to make them a communal patchwork quilt for The Sanctuary in return.

Bahorel almost hissed in jubilation as he unwrapped his hammock. He was the only one to know _exactly_ what gift he was getting as he had specifically asked for a hammock. No one was quite sure why but after six years of friendship they had pretty much given up trying to unwrap the enigma that is Bahorel.

Éponine gasped at her gift and almost threw it down to the ground as though it had burnt her. In a good way though. She wasn’t sure whose idea it had been to gift her a refurbished Walkman but, whoever it was, she _was_ pretty sure that as soon as she found out – and she would find out – they would get a massive fucking hug. Just _such_ a big hug.

Gavroche cackled almost maniacally as he tore away the paper separating him from his new candyfloss machine. Oh yeah. Éponine was going to murder whoever gave that to him. That’s exactly what Gavroche needed. More sugar. (She was secretly happy for him, though.)

Feuilly’s eyes lit up with excitement and he announced immediately after seeing his gift that they were definitely going to be playing Cards Against Humanity later.

Cosette marvelled at The Collected Works of Jane Austen and promised wholeheartedly that she was going to read all of it before next Christmas so she could report back with her findings then.

Marius, although not particularly fussed about being given things – he prefers to give to others – couldn’t help the smile that blossomed at he unwrapped his new ukulele. Said smile grew even wider once he turned it over to see the beautiful painting of the night sky – done by Grantaire – on the back.

Grantaire himself received a hamper of acrylic paints the size of a small Labrador. Not only that, though, the hamper was from his favourite art shop – the one he was friends with the manager of near the hospital – and so contained several vouchers as a Christmas gift from them. Honestly, he was thrilled.

Enjolras always knows _roughly _what he’s going to get. After all, he gets pretty much the same thing every year. The amount is always a surprise. The first year they had employed their gift system as a group, Enjolras had just asked that any money left over from the gift fund be donated to a charity. So that was his gift. This year, it was £30 under his name to a charity dedicated to cleaning up the oceans. He positively beamed with happiness, thanking his friends for being so thoughtful.

Of course, given how various members of the group had coupled off, there were other gifts to be exchanged, but they were done in private once everyone else had begun talking amongst themselves.

Musichetta gave Joly a scarf she knitted herself (Joly loves scarfs and knitwear) and Bossuet a knitted woollen bobble hat, to replace his old one, for during the cold months when he begins to complain of his bald head getting cold. Bossuet got Musichetta a Doctor Who themed Monopoly set and Joly a cool lamp that looks like a triceratops. Joly gave Musichetta and Bossuet matching silver rings on chains to wear as necklaces from when he went on holiday to Paris in November – he also bought one for himself. Needless to say, none of them were planning on taking off their necklaces any time soon.

Marius got Cosette a beautiful gold and turquoise butterfly brooch that she had briefly mentioned thinking it was pretty about six months previously and Cosette got him tickets to go to the first night of the proms the following year, something that she knew he had always wanted to go to. Sometimes it really becomes obvious how perfect they are for each other. Thoughtful bastards.

Grantaire was taken aback by the black leather jacket Enjolras presented to him. It was old but not worn in a way that made it look like Enjolras had somehow managed to pull it straight off John Travolta in Grease. That was, apart from the back panel. The back panel had been painted by Feuilly – his impressionistic style was unmistakable in Grantaire’s eyes – to resemble The Sanctuary. Though, not The Sanctuary in the way that Grantaire painted it, with their friends milling about, but empty, with the sunlight filtering through the trees and casting the place with a strange almost ethereal glow. It was beautiful. Feuilly was fiercely hugged then and Enjolras had a huge, rather sloppy kiss placed on his mouth.

Enjolras stared at the painting it disbelief. It was himself, he knew it was himself, but it didn’t look the way he saw himself. He was, well… he was _beautiful. _Enjolras was aware that he was attractive, it wasn’t vanity, it was a simple fact. But he had never thought that he looked like _this. _There he was, in what looked to be the back room of the Musain, in his old, red jacket, standing on a table giving a speech. He wasn’t just giving a speech, though. It looked like he was ranting, impassioned and full of righteous fury, eyes ablaze, ready to lead Les Amis de l’ABC into battle, just exuding confidence and, well, charm.

“It’s you,” Grantaire said sheepishly, as though Enjolras needed clarification, “You in the style of Delacroix’s _Liberty Leading the People. _I thought you should see yourself how I see you. Thought it’d give you an idea of why I’m so obsessed with you.”

He practically leapt at Grantaire then. If they hadn’t been in a room surrounded by their closest friends, Enjolras was positive he would have started tearing off their clothes. As it was, he had to settle for kissing the living daylights out of him, their friends’ presence be damned. Besides they had gone back to Harry Potter, they weren’t bothered with them.

***

Later, when Chinese food had been ordered and eaten, everyone was settling down to sleep – the snow had stuck to the roads and there was no way that Joly was letting any one of them drive or even walk home so the living room became the sleeping room.

Enjolras and Grantaire had curled up together on the smallest sofa and were simply enjoying each other’s body warmth as the house had gone very cold over the course of the day.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras murmured suddenly into Grantaire’s ear, “Before I go to sleep and forget to tell you, it’s important to me that I tell you how proud I am of you for sticking with the maths and taking drama again. I love you so much and you are the strongest person I know, okay?”

Grantaire was dumbfounded for a moment, captivated by the beauty and kindness of the man in front of him.

“I love you too, Apollo,” he said, finding his voice once more, “Thank you for… well… thank you for just being you. There is no one else I would rather be with.”

Enjolras smiled into their chaste kiss.

“Night, love,” he said as he snuggled into Grantaire’s chest.

“Goodnight, Apollo.” Grantaire pressed a kiss into Enjolras’s curls.

Yeah, it was a good night.

***

¹And that was the last time Éponine let Grantaire go anywhere near peach schnapps. Seriously, it just put him in a bad mood. “Ponine!” he had whined at her as she dragged him home from Montparnasse’s Christmas party, “Look at me! I’m a mess! I’m drunk on peach schnapps like a fucking child! Why did you let me do this?!” Rolling her eyes, she had refrained from letting him fall into the ditch he was veering dangerously close to the edge of, tempting as it was. At the time, she had been rather gratified by the hangover she knew he would have the following morning when she could just clap loudly next to his ear if he tried to blame her for his own stupid decisions again. Following that, though, she was not dealing with that again. No more peach schnapps for R. Nope.

***

** Deleted Interaction from this chapter **

Combeferre: Wow, R where did you find this photo album?

R: Oh, you know. I have a moth guy.

Bahorel: Is it Montparnasse by any chance?

Joly, cracking up instantly: MOTH-PARNASSE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There! Isn't it all nice and sweet when nothing hurts and everything is okay?
> 
> Question of the day: What is the best gift you have ever received?


	8. Javert is a Surprisingly Good Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW - REFERENCED NEGLECT, REFERENCED HOMOPHOBIA, REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, BASICALLY JUST EVERYTHING SHITTY ABOUT THE THÉNARDIER'S
> 
> Enjoy!

Montparnasse has always been a pretty nosy guy, whether it was listening to his parents argue through the door when he was five or collecting as much gossip through the grapevine at his school as possible, he did it all. He just wanted to know everything that was going on around him, was that really such a bad thing? Despite what his teachers and parents and school counsellor and the therapist his mum had made him go to when he was nine had said, he, on the other hand, had decided it wasn’t. After all, all knowledge is free, right? And ooh does Montparnasse love free shit.

Despite it being early January, the weather seemed to have decided to be all sun for the time being – fucking global warming – and so Montparnasse had spent the better part of his day reclining on a deckchair in his garden, doing his reading for the classes he should have been in. It was drama, a subject that he was usually amazing at, but the textbook was frankly the dullest thing he had ever fucking read. So when he heard a rather ominous crashing sound coming from Grantaire’s old house he didn’t even hesitate to run over to their shared fence to do some proper snooping.

He had hoped that it would be Grantaire trying to break back into the house – he hadn’t seen him in a while and, not that he would ever admit it but, he was starting to miss the guy – but, to his extreme dismay, all he saw through the window was Grantaire’s father marching up and down the hallway past the bathroom in what looked like a frenzy of rage. Immediately he knew something was wrong. That’s a lie, actually. Immediately, he thought about how much of an asshole Grantaire’s father was but, right after that, when he heard yelling emanating from the small house, he knew something was possibly _very _wrong.

He couldn’t work out exactly what was being said through the walls but, as close as he could manage, it sounded something like “Ungrateful _something something_ shit! _Something something something_ thief! _Something_ money _something something!”_

Grantaire’s words from weeks before floated through his mind ‘Text me if anything cool happens’. Now, if Montparnasse considered himself an aficionado of cool (and he did), he would say that what was happening wasn’t exactly cool, but it definitely existed on the cool-interesting spectrum that all of the things he deemed worthy of spending his time thinking about dwelt on.

So he texted Grantaire about it.

Well, he eventually texted Grantaire about it but, right at the moment he pulled his phone, the immense dickhead that called himself Grantaire’s father came barrelling out of the house and towards his car. Too enraged to notice Montparnasse and his phone, he completely missed the teen beginning to film him.

The car backfired loudly before swerving from the curb and onto the road and it was all captured on video. Montparnasse wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with the video, but there was a small, suspicious voice at the back of his mind – it actually sounded a lot like Éponine – that told him that it might be in his best interests to keep it. _Just in case shit hits the fan, _he could practically hear Éponine saying. Yes, he thought, _Just in case. _

_Then_ Montparnasse texted Grantaire.

***

The ringing of the phone brought Valjean out of his mid-afternoon reverie.

It had been a rather pleasant day thus far. The dinnerladies had saved him a plate of bangers and mash for lunch along with a healthy – healthy psychologically speaking of course, medically speaking it was a gastrointestinal nightmare – serving of sticky toffee pudding and custard. Full and happy, Valjean had reached his office in a pleasant haze, ready to tackle the challenges brought by the afternoon. Inevitably there would be something to take up his attention in the final two periods of the day but he was happy and well-fed and ready to take on whatever admin work the world was going to throw at him.

Then the phone rang.

His optimism remained as he answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, sir. This is Zéphine from reception,” his smile faded slightly if only because of the slightly nervous tremble to the receptionist’s voice, “We have a man down here demanding to speak to his son, should we let him? He has ID confirmation of his identity…” Zéphine trailed off, obviously unsure of what to do.

“No,” Valjean said quickly, “Could you please have someone escort him to my office? I should like to resolve this myself.”

“Of course, sir.”

The line went dead, as did Valjean’s hope for a pleasant afternoon of blissfully mundane admin.

The moment the door to his office opened to reveal the hassled-looking Zéphine and the man in question, Valjean regretted not asking for the man’s name, it would have given him time to prepare.

As it was, Grantaire’s father stood in the doorway, positively fuming with rage. Before even stepping through the door, he was shouting.

“Where is my son? Where is that thieving little bastard?!”

“You can go now, Zéphine. Thank you,” Valjean addressed her first if only to buy himself some time to work out what the hell he was going to say to this maniac.

Before we really get into it, though, it has to be mentioned how Valjean sees all of Les Amis. Of course, his daughter is in the club so obviously, he is going to favour them, but it goes deeper than that. See, at the time of our story, Valjean had been in charge of St Michel Upper School for just coming up on seven months – he took over just before the end of the academic year from the last guy – and hadn’t found any students that h truly clicked with as a teacher until the students that formed Les Amis de l’ABC came up from the lower school.

Valjean had met Enjolras once before at the beginning of the year. It was over the summer holidays and he, Valjean, had been required to attend a meeting of the school board, just a formality really but he didn’t have a choice not to – if he’d had a choice, he most certainly would have taken it. Halfway through the meeting, as the topic of discussion moved away from welcoming Valjean onto the faculty and onto budget cuts surrounding the arts – bloody typical – Enjolras, who had been forced to go to the meeting by his father, suddenly began to berate the board for trying to cut out the arts. His impassioned speaking made Enjolras the first student that Valjean actually liked.

He admired Enjolras’s passion and morals the same way he admired that in every other one of Les Amis.

He admired Enjolras, yes, but he felt strangely protective of Grantaire.

Grantaire had been labelled a troublemaker from the very beginning, but all Valjean saw was a kid trying his best. Every time he would find Grantaire in his office with strategically long sleeves to hide the bruises – yes, Valjean had his suspicions – his heart would hurt for him. In many ways, he felt the same fatherly instincts to protect Grantaire as he had felt upon meeting Cosette for the first time. He wanted him safe. Simple as that. And Valjean was ashamed of how little he’d done in the few months he’d known him to keep him safe.

In Valjean’s mind, that stopped right then and there.

“You’re Grantaire’s father, are you not?” he asked, trying his best to be as civil as possible as he made conversation with a monster.

“Yes, I am,” his tone was menacing, “And I’m gonna speak to him. Father to son. So you’re gonna tell me where he is.”

Valjean felt his blood begin to boil as he looked at the deplorable man as he fought to keep his façade as professional and as neutral as possible.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said diplomatically, “Seeing as Grantaire is over sixteen, I legally cannot give out any of his information to an outside party. No matter who said party is.”

It was utter horseshit. Legally speaking. Technically, he would be perfectly fine in telling Grantaire’s father his class schedule and that he was living with Éponine and Gavroche. Morally speaking, though, Jean Valjean wasn’t planning on doing anything of the sort.

Grantaire’s father could see Valjean’s ironclad resolve and his face quickly flushed an angry shade of plum.

“Now you listen here, mate,” the man shouted, standing from the chair and leaning into Valjean’s personal space, “I don’t give a shit about your rules! Tell me where that thieving little fuck that calls himself my son is right now and I’ll be on my way.”

For the first time in a very long time, Valjean’s eyes were cold and unsympathetic. He stood to be on even standing with Grantaire’s “father”, staring into his eyes and trying his very best not to clock him on the jaw. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“No,” Grantaire’s father refused, shaking his head in an almost erratic manner, “I’m ain’t going anywhere until you bring me my son.”

Valjean, calm as ever, merely raised a single eyebrow and picked up the phone on his desk. Seeing as he hadn’t dialled a number, the dial tone simply played in his ear, without function, nevertheless, it was enough to fool the man on the other side of the desk.

“Yes, Zéphine?” Valjean said down the receiver to no one, “Could you please send up security to escort—”

He cut his words off as Grantaire’s father slammed the door behind him.

Valjean put the phone down and strolled over to his window to watch as the irate man stomped out of the front gate and rocketed away in a flurry of smog as his exhaust pipe pumped out fumes.

Good riddance, Valjean thought.

Generally speaking, Jean Valjean was an incredibly forgiving person, but he felt absolutely no need to forgive Grantaire’s father for his transgressions. He barely even felt a _shred _of sympathy for the bastard.

What he did feel, however, was not a small amount of amusement as he thought of the man scampering away at the mere mention of security being called. It should be mentioned, of course, that St Michel does not have – and for that matter has _never _had – security stationed on campus. That is, of course, unless you count a furious Javert wielding one of his precious law textbooks in the foyer. After all, those textbooks are pretty damn heavy.

His mind back to the man’s past actions, however, Valjean felt several great pangs of sorrow for Grantaire. How _dare _that awful man hurt him? Valjean was sure that if that man ever went within 100 metres of Grantaire, he would personally give him a taste of his own medicine. These thoughts surprised Valjean, though, not being a violent man in any way, but he found that he was completely sincere in these thoughts.

Then something else possibly even slightly more alarming occurred to him.

What if any of the other children were in similar situations? It chilled him to the bone to even contemplate that any of the other young people under his care at the school were in danger. And, if they were, was it then up to him to get them out of that situation and help them? Whatever the answer was, he couldn’t stand idly by and let himself live in the blissful ignorance that he had been in before. He couldn’t watch amazing kids like Grantaire suffer because no one else wanted to notice that something was wrong. Not again.

He picked up the phone once more. This time, though, he actually took the time to dial a number.

“Yes?” the voice on the other end demanded.

“Javert, I need your help. You’re on a free period now, yes?” He heard Javert sigh resignedly.

“Yes. What do you want?” he sounded irritable, as though Valjean had just interrupted something vitally important. It was probably marking. Javert always seemed to have a pile of marking a foot high to do – Valjean had tried to convince him just to set fewer worksheets but the other man wouldn’t hear of it, eventually Valjean had just had to give up.

“Could you come to my office, please? I need your help with something. It’s important.”

The phone on the other end had been put down with a huff but Valjean didn’t have a single doubt in his mind that Javert was on his way to help, the man was nothing if not loyal.

***

“I’m sorry?” Javert spluttered looking equal parts gobsmacked and appalled. _He can’t really expect me to do this, _he thought, his eyebrows furrowing.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was necessary.” Javert still wasn’t convinced, his eyebrows moving from furrowed to raised in what must be record time. Valjean seemed desperate, though, and so ploughed forward determinedly. “I’m not saying we do everyone right away. We just start with a small group of around ten pupils and then continue from there some other time!” Valjean looked seconds away from begging and neither of the two men particularly wanted that. So, Javert acquiesced.

“Look,” he said, finally sitting down in Valjean’s chair in front of the open laptop sitting on the desk, “It has been an awfully long time since I’ve done this and the technology is very different from my days in the force… I’m just saying I might not be able to find anything.”

Javert didn’t exactly feel good about digging into the home lives of students – it was _technically_, in the broader meaning of the word, from certain perspectives, illegal after all – but, really, he didn’t feel bad or guilty about it either. No matter what the students thought when he was yelling at them for too much missed homework, he did, in fact, care about them and, to think any one of them could be in danger? Well, that would be breaching his duty of care as a teacher in possibly the biggest way imaginable.

“Who did you have in mind?” he asked finally, glancing up to find Valjean’s expression grateful.

“I thought we could start with a few of the more vulnerable kids, and then from there do it in groups of ten or so at random.” Javert nodded and prompted for Valjean to give him a list of names. Instead of reading them out, Valjean pulled a list out of his pocket and slid it over the desk in Javert’s direction.

Javert scoffed. They weren’t in a heist movie, for goodness sake! From the way Valjean was acting around all of this stuff, you’d have thought he’d never broken the law before! Upon looking down at the list, though, Javert understood.

Valjean had always been very diplomatic towards his students and had never been accused of playing favourites – even with his daughter being on of the students – but if it ever got out that Valjean played favourites towards Les Amis de l’ABC, as the list heavily suggested that he did, he would lose all credibility with the students, all of them, even Les Amis would be disappointed in him out of principal. No, this was better to be left unsaid.

The list had eight names on it.

  1. Combeferre
  2. Courfeyrac
  3. Jehan
  4. Bahorel
  5. Éponine
  6. Feuilly
  7. Grantaire
  8. Enjolras

“Can I ask,” Javert began, scanning the list, “Why the rest of their club isn’t on the list?”

Valjean looked somewhat sheepish as he replied.

“Well, I needn’t ask you to look into Cosette, obviously, I have met Joly’s family on numerous occasions over the years and they are all delightful, Musichetta’s mother is extremely protective of Musichetta and her boyfriends and so I doubt either of their families would abide by anything untoward going on with Bossuet’s personal life. And, if Marius is ever not completely okay, I’m sure Cosette will tell me.”

Javert nodded, understanding completely.

_Alright, _he thought, _time to begin._

_***_

An hour and twenty-three minutes later, Javert sat back in Valjean’s chair and sighed, finally finished. Valjean looked up from his paperwork on the other side of the desk at the sound of Javert’s sigh and lowered his pen.

“Finished?” he asked.

“Finally,” Javert confirmed, cracking his neck side to side to alleviate the tension that had built up in it over the course of the day. Valjean, on the other hand, sat up straight, a fresh page on his notepad available, the list of names beside him and a pen in his hand once more, ready to take notes.

“Alright,” Javert continued, setting his eyes back onto the laptop screen, “Bahorel, Combeferre and Courfeyrac are all perfectly fine. The closest any of them came to having any contact with social services is once two years ago when Courfeyrac was wrongly accused of shoplifting¹ and once when Bahorel was given a warning by the police for fighting with another boy his age in town three years ago.”

Valjean nodded, satisfied, and crossed all three of their names off the list.

“And the others?” he asked.

“Jehan is fine now but, according to social services, there was time about five years ago when they were living with their grandmother because they had been kicked out of their parents’ house. Currently, though, they are back living with their mother and their mother filed for divorce from her ex-husband four years ago. So, I think it’s safe to say that the problem there was removed.

“Feuilly,” he went on, “was easier to track over the years because of his records in the foster system. He was orphaned when he was five and was immediately placed in the Petit-Picpus Children’s home—”

“Petit-Picpus?” Valjean asked suddenly.

“Yes…? Why, is that name familiar to you?”

Valjean shook his head. Not because it wasn’t familiar to him, but because he didn’t want to get into exactly why it was familiar. He did jot the name down onto his little notebook, though, even going so far as to underline it. He made a mental note to speak to Cosette later.

“Anyway,” Javert continued, “He bounced around foster homes for nine years until he stayed with the family he’s still with today. They adopted him earlier this year.

“Grantaire, as sad as his story is, it isn’t particularly complicated, but there is a strong possibility there is stuff we don’t know because he’s never had a social worker and so proper documentation is rather few and far between. Uh, he’s an only child, his father hasn’t held down a job for more than a year since Grantaire was five, his mother left when he was eleven, his aunt died when he was fourteen and his father spent a brief stint in hospital two years ago having treatment for liver damage likely caused by alcoholism. Unfortunate, but there you go.” Javert glanced at Valjean’s unhappy expression and backtracked a little in his seemingly indifferent attitude. “At least he’s living with Éponine now, isn’t he?” Valjean nodded, his eyebrows unfurrowing slightly.

Javert forged forward.

“Enjolras is a little more complicated,” he said looking away from the computer, “There is nothing that I can find that indicates that anything untoward going on online, but I know a few people at the lower school and they all swear up and down that there was a period of time in year ten where all of the gossip around the school concurred that Enjolras had come out to his parents and that his father was _not _happy about it. Apparently, Enjolras started going home on Combeferre or Courfeyrac’s bus to their houses instead of going home most nights. Past that, though, I couldn’t tell you much more about him than you already know. No social worker, no criminal record, not even a sudden hospital visit in the last fifteen years. Sorry.”

Valjean waved the apology away. It wasn’t Javert’s fault that Enjolras’s father seemed to have covered up everything else. And Valjean _knew _that was what must’ve happened because, and Valjean was sure of this because Enjolras had mentioned it to him in passing once, Enjolras had been arrested around a year and a half previously while at a protest in town. He made a note of the coverup on his notepad and gestured for Javert to continue.

Javert sighed unhappily as he looked at the information on the laptop, clearly distressed by what he saw.

“Finally, Éponine. You’re probably already aware that her parents are some of the most deplorable human beings on the face of the earth, yes?”

Valjean nodded and rubbed his eyes, remembering exactly how awful the Thénardier’s had seemed when he had met them a few years previously.

“Well,” Javert continued, “Not only are they con artists of the very worst kind – preying on vulnerable people in the poorest area of town – but they are almost certainly guilty of two accounts of manslaughter. They were never convicted but they are most definitely guilty.”

“Didn’t you arrest them once?” Valjean asked suddenly, “You know, back when you were a policeman?”

Javert nodded, a bitter expression suddenly on his face.

“Four times actually. Three times for theft and once for assault. Never stuck, though,” he reminded Valjean, face still bitter, “They always found someone to pay their bail or some other way to get out of it entirely…” He trailed off, still in his pensive state, as though he was having some awful bout of melancholy.

“Javert!” Valjean prompted a minute later when the man was still lost in this trance-like state. Javert snapped back to reality immediately and looked at the laptop to find where he was supposed to be, mentally speaking.

“Yes, anyway, according to an old friend at the police station, the Thénardier’s were going to be charged with manslaughter – they are definitely guilty – but some moron lost some of the evidence and so they couldn’t be charged. Plus, they are currently out of the country, without their children I must add, in America and have been since the beginning of November. Their visa is for two months and they should be back by the end of this week, but something tells me they aren’t coming back.”

“Why do you say that?” Valjean asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Just a feeling. I’ll keep my ear to the ground over the next few weeks to see if I’m right.”

Javert closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair. He was done.

Valjean mirrored him and loosened his tie a little. It had been a long afternoon and he was very much aware that it wasn’t over yet.

“I have to tell Grantaire about what happened.” He wasn’t _whining _per se, but he clearly wasn’t thrilled about the idea of telling one of his favourites – though, of course, officially, he doesn’t have those – that his abusive father just stormed into the school demanding to see his son, heavily implying that Grantaire had stolen something and now he was going to pay for it.

The mere concept saddened him deeply.

“Yes, you do,” Javert agreed, loosening his tie a little too, “And I have marking to do.” He stood and walked to the door, patting his rather discontented friend on his shoulder comfortingly as he passed, only turning back when Valjean spoke.

“Good luck,” he said, a small, tired smile on his face.

“Good luck,” Javert responded. The _‘you’re going to need it’_ went unsaid.

***

¹It was actually Gavroche who shoplifted those _Malteasers. _By the time the shop manager caught up with Courfeyrac, Gavroche was long gone. Their diversion had worked as Courfeyrac was patted down by a nearby police officer and dismissed and Gavroche was well on his way back to Combeferre’s house for the sleepover, _Malteasers _in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much to my surprise, I am loving writing Javert and Valjean's friendship and tbh, if you want to, you are totally free to read this chapter as though they are a couple or have a thing for each other. There was a point where I was writing it where I thought 'Hang on, this sounds distinctly like the precursor to porn'. It's this bit if you're curious:
> 
> “Yes?” the voice on the other end demanded.
> 
> “Javert, I need your help. You’re on a free period now, yes?” He heard Javert sigh resignedly.
> 
> “Yes. What do you want?” he sounded irritable, as though Valjean had just interrupted something vitally important. It was probably marking. Javert always seemed to have a pile of marking a foot high to do – Valjean had tried to convince him just to set fewer worksheets but the other man wouldn’t hear of it, eventually Valjean had just had to give up.
> 
> “Could you come to my office, please? I need your help with something.”
> 
> See what I mean?
> 
> Also, can someone just give Montparnasse a hug? My baby boy misses his friends!


	9. Grantaire Needs A Nap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little shorter than the 5k that the others are - closer to 3k - but not for any particular reason. This was always going to be a shorter chapter given that not much actually happens narratively speaking, but I figured it was important to show how all of this is affecting R. 
> 
> Someone please just let my baby rest!
> 
> CW - IMPLIED/REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, REFERENCES TO THREATS OF VIOLENCE, NAPPING ON BEANBAGS (NOT REALLY A TRIGGER BUT JESUS CAN YOU IMAGINE THE NECK PAIN)
> 
> Enjoy!

The idle chatter of the drama studio faded into background noise for Grantaire as he delved deeper and deeper into the play in his hand. Without Jehan and Courfeyrac there to distract him with gossip – they were in London together cashing in on Courfeyrac’s Christmas gift – he was actually getting through the book at a decent pace, not to mention he was all caught up on his other drama work Really, it had been a very productive day.

That’s why, when the phone sitting on the teacher’s desk rang all of a sudden, he paid it no mind whatsoever. Even the teacher’s furrowed brow and concerned expression as she listened to whoever was on the other end didn’t set off alarm bells for Grantaire, he didn’t even notice it! Luckily for him, no one else did either.

Mademoiselle Favourite – who, rather fittingly, was, in fact, many students’ favourite teacher – glided over to him, slipping under the radar of the class, over to where Grantaire was perched on a box in the corner. She moved so silently and with such a dancer’s grace that, had it not been for the cloud of rose-scented perfume that perpetually surrounded her, Grantaire would have missed her approaching completely. As it was, though, he tore his eyes away from the book in front of him with a smile on his face, ready to talk to his teacher.

As you can probably imagine, his smile faded rather quickly then.

Mademoiselle Favourite’s delicate brow was furrowed in a way that Grantaire had never seen before and was eerily reminiscent of how Joly would look at Jehan when they returned to a room smelling of smoke. Concern. That’s what it was.

“R?” she said gently, her voice quiet enough that if Grantaire hadn’t been prepared to listen for her he might’ve missed it completely over the general ruckus of the studio, “Monsieur Valjean wants to talk to you in his office.”

Grantaire was about to open his mouth to protest and argue that he hadn’t done anything wrong enough in weeks to warrant a visit to Valjean, but Favourite cut him off before he even began.

“You’re not in trouble so there’s no need to argue. Don’t say anything, just go.” Grantaire nodded and began to pack up his stuff. “Oh, and, R? Well done on getting caught up. I’m impressed.” The load weighing down on Grantaire’s shoulders at the thought of having to go back to Valjean’s office when, the last time he went, his school-life was turned upside down in a pretty monumental way lessened slightly at the praise. What? It’s nice to have your hard work acknowledged, especially when it’s in a subject that you love, as Grantaire had come to love drama.

Still, despite Favourite’s praise, Grantaire could feel his stomach twist into a knot upon knot as he approached Valjean’s office. This was worsened still by the sight that greeted him at the end of the hallway. Valjean was waiting for him by the door.

Now, as you will know by now, Grantaire had been in Valjean’s office a great many times for a venerable plethora of reasons. He’d been in there for graffiti, for not doing his homework, for talking back to teachers, for fighting – though you most definitely know about that one. He’d been in there when Valjean was worried about him and when he just needed somewhere quiet to sit where no one would ask any hard to answer questions. He’d even be summoned there out of the blue once, but, even then, the drill had been the same: knock on the door, sit at the desk, and talk. Never, not once, had Valjean met him at the door and looked at him with the kind of concerned, sorry expression that he bore just then.

“R!” he greeted warmly, gesturing through the open door and into the office.

Grantaire couldn’t help but frown then. See, they’d been doing figure painting in art – something he excelled at, though he would never admit it – and capturing the essence of movement was a huge part of that. The reason why Grantaire was so good at figure drawing, according to Madame Magloire, was that he could see the emotions behind a movement. The difference between hands waving wildly about the air with excitement and with anger, just going by the way they looked. And, right then, Grantaire couldn’t help but see the stiff, anxiety behind Valjean’s sweeping arm movement and the knots in his stomach increased tenfold upon noticing it.

Grantaire had never liked it when authors described high tension situations using the phrase ‘you could cut the tension with a knife’ because… like… what even does that mean? But then, as he lingered awkwardly in the doorway with Valjean _right there, _not knowing what to do or why he was there or whether he was in trouble – yes, Favourite had said that he wasn’t but, in Grantaire’s mind, she could have just been being nice – he thought he might be starting to get it.

“I don’t have to pick another subject, do I?” he asked, trying his best to cut the tension, “Because I’m not going to say that I’m surprised if the government has stopped funding drama as a real subject, but, you know, I’ve got to say I thought it would take a little longer.”

Usually, Valjean would laugh at Grantaire’s bleak humour and joke with him a little before getting to the heart of the issue. However, it seemed that that day was not _usual. _The best the headteacher could manage was a tight-lipped smile that did nothing to convey any real joy and genuinely made Grantaire wonder whether the government actually _had _given up funding drama.

“Wait, shit, have they?” He paused momentarily before realising what he just said, “I mean, shit, sorry, wait, no, ah! Just… _do _I have to pick another subject?”

“No, R. Drama is safe from the government. But, well…” he trailed off, waving his hands about, clearly searching for the right thing to say to communicate exactly what he was trying to say that was so hard to get across. Eventually, he sighed and folded his hands on his desk in a very business-like manner. “Grantaire, R, your father came here earlier.”

“Oh,” was all Grantaire could reply dumbly.

“He wanted to know where you were,” he went on, having moved on to wringing his hands nervously, “I didn’t tell him, of course, but you should know that he was very angry indeed. He kept saying that you had stolen something from him. Now, I don’t believe that you would put yourself in unnecessarily risky situations like that unless you knew exactly what you were doing but, I implore you, as someone who cares for you, please, _please _be careful, R. Your father is not a good man and I wouldn’t b surprised if he did something truly reprehensible to get back whatever you took.”

When Grantaire looked up from where he had been staring at the wooden top of the desk, unable to meet Valjean’s eyes for fear of seeing the disappointment in them that he was sure was there, he didn’t see any disappointment or anger or anything of the sort. Valjean’s imploring seemed sincere; his face was lined and creased with worry in a way that made him look fifteen years older than Grantaire had ever seen him.

“I’m not sure how much I can do to help you here, R,” he admitted unhappily, “Of course, I will make sure that that man is never allowed on school grounds again without your express consent beforehand and I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. Éponine and Gavroche, too.” He smiled warmly but the worry seemed ingrained into his face now that Grantaire had seen it and, to be honest, he felt so guilty for making Valjean – who had never been anything but kind to him – so exhausted and seemingly beaten down.

“That’s all I really needed to say.” He stood up and smiled at Grantaire sympathetically, “You’re free to go. Unless, of course, you want to stay and process everything in a quiet place. I would understand completely if you did.”

Suddenly, Grantaire was overcome with a humungous wave of gratitude towards Valjean. Neither of them had been at the school long, not even six months, but, in that time, Grantaire realised, that Valjean had felt like more of a dad to him than his father ever had. More than his daddy-issues, though, Grantaire was so glad that he had someone non-judgmental who was always willing to be there to be a helping hand when things got tough. In fact, he was so overcome with this gratitude that suddenly he found himself charging forward and pulling himself into Valjean’s chest in a fierce hug.

Valjean, of course, barely hesitated in reciprocating the hug.

Grantaire wasn’t touch starved, not at all. Really, when you’re friends with _both_ Jehan and Courfeyrac it is impossible to be touch starved given how tactile those two are with each other. And, yet, to be hugged without any expectation of offering comfort in return, just being allowed to take the comfort he needed from it. The hug was over as quickly as it had begun, as Grantaire mentally stumbled over trying to work out how to apologise to the headteacher for practically tackling the guy with a hug, and, yet, despite everything that seemed to be going wrong in his life, he still felt the relief that the hug had offered, no matter how momentarily.

“I-I’m sorry about that,” he stuttered to Valjean, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, “Tackling you, I mean.” Valjean was shaking his head vehemently, though.

“Please don’t apologise. We all need a hug every now and then!” then his face turned serious as he planted a heavy hand on Grantaire’s shoulder, “R, I always say that you can come to me if you ever need anything and I mean it. Even if all you need is a hug or a willing ear, there is never any work that I might be doing that is so important that cannot be pushed aside for a while so I can help my students. _Especially_ if they’re struggling.” He gave him a meaningful look and patted his shoulder comfortingly in a very Valjean way. “Alright, go on, go. If I’m not mistaken, you have a free now and you look like you could use some rest. I’m sure if you told Madame Magloire that I said you had special permission, she would let you use those beanbags at the front of her room for a nap.”

***

Unsurprisingly, Madame Magloire saw no problem with letting Grantaire nap in her room while her year tens practised their still lives. She did have one condition, though: that Grantaire should agree to be sketched by the aforementioned little shits of year ten.

On any other day, Grantaire might’ve refused grumpily and gone to sulk in The Sanctuary with a huff and half a cigarette from Jehan, but he really was so goddamn tired that he couldn’t find it within himself to give one single shit. He was so in need of a nap this time that not only did he agree to her terms, but he didn’t even agree passive-aggressively or bad-temperedly or anything of the sort. In reality, he didn’t say anything. He just flopped onto the beanbag like a sack of potatoes and closed his eyes, wilfully ignoring the monumental scraping sound of twenty stools against the floor as just as many curious art GCSE art students turned with their sketchbooks to see their new subject.

Instead of letting his mind wonder if the artists were getting his nose right – Flynn Rider’s words were still echoing in his head from when Joly had made him watch Tangled the other day – Grantaire let his mind ruminate on something, anything else. Ever the minefield of unpleasantness that it was, his mind quickly settled on making him worry about how he was going to explain to Enjolras what had happened that day without completely freaking him out or driving him into a frenzy of anger or panic.

What would he think? How could he possibly react to something like that?

Grantaire _knew_ Enjolras. He knew that he wouldn’t, _couldn’t,_ just lay back and do nothing whilst Grantaire’s father was still out there. He would seek out his father and kick and punch and scream at the man until he promised to leave Grantaire alone for good. He would become just as determined to make Grantaire’s father suffer as he was about saving the world one reusable water bottle at a time and, in a rather base and some would say inappropriate way, Grantaire seemed to find that concept – of Enjolras acting as a sort of knight in shining armour come to save him – rather enticing.

At the same time, though, and no matter how much he hated it, Grantaire also knew his father. He knew the horrifying details of his father’s twisted psyche better than anyone. Therefore, he knew what would happen were Enjolras to go marching over there in a righteous fury like some kind of smoking hot avenging angel – _come on, R, keep it in your pants_. Enjolras would get his ass handed to him. Grantaire’s father would hurt him and Grantaire was not going to abide by that. Not ever. Even if in fantasy the scenario would play out a lot differently.

That settles it then, Grantaire thought cynically, lounging back on the beanbag, eyes closed and brow furrowed.

He couldn’t tell Enjolras.

About any of it.

Relying on the old saying ‘ignorance is bliss’, Grantaire resolved to let Enjolras believe that everything was okay. For his own safety and happiness and, for god’s sake, is it really so shameful for Grantaire to just want to play dumb for a while? To be able to step into a bubble of happiness with Enjolras and not have to think about how his world seemed to be burning down around him? To want a sense of normalcy for once in his godforsaken life? Even if it is just for the hour or two that he gets to spend alone with Enjolras, he was willing to take it.

To clarify, Grantaire wouldn’t tell Enjolras about how his father was looking for him, likely with intent to maim or kill him for taking his money, he wouldn’t tell him that he’d taken the money in the first place, he wouldn’t tell him how badly maths was still kicking his ass and he most certainly wouldn’t tell him about how utterly and unwaveringly and unbelievably exhausted he felt. The longer he dealt with the knowledge of every little shitty thing that had happened to him over the course of his relatively short life, the more tired he was of it. He just wanted to be happy – he didn’t think happiness was too much to ask – and every time he was able to get close, the universe seemed to move the goalposts!

So, no, Grantaire wouldn’t tell Enjolras about any of it. He would keep it to himself for as long as he could.

Having made his decision, Grantaire forced his mind away from _that _topic and onto something that was truly baffling him.

Why was Valjean so kind to him?

Why and how had the guy come to the conclusion that Grantaire was worth worrying about and, _fuck_, putting important work aside for? If anything in that school was going to confuse him the most, Grantaire would have put money on it being algebra, but he truly was baffled by Valjean’s kindness.

He continued to ruminate for a while, as the drawings were completed and Madame Magloire critiqued. Eventually, Grantaire found himself drifting off to sleep and he was frankly too tired to stop himself.

Really, those beanbags are surprisingly comfortable.

It was only the piercing sound of the school bell, signalling the end of the day, that Grantaire awoke later. He pulled on his coat and slung his rucksack over his shoulder and tried not to yawn too loudly so as to not disturb Madame Magloire who was working at her desk. She seemed engrossed enough in whatever it was that she was doing that she didn’t hear him getting up.

When Grantaire stubbed his toe on the bookshelf by the door and consequently swore rather loudly, however, she did, in fact, notice.

“R,” she started, not sounding angry at him for swearing or even particularly surprised that he was still there, more worried. Grantaire wished that people would stop sounding worried about him. “R,” she continued, “_Please_ take care of yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, inching closer to the exit.

“Bullshit.” He stopped in his tracks. He had never heard Madame Magloire swear before.

“Mada—”

“No, R,” she cut him off, “You are not okay. You look like death warmed over and several of my year tens asked whether they should go and get the nurse because you looked, in their words, ‘like you might be dying’. You are _not _okay.”

“I’m just really tired.” His voice was small and fragile and, much to his frustration, worsened the concerned look on his teacher’s face.

Madam Magloire looked as though she wanted to protest and make him take another nap on the bean bags, but her mouth snapped shut. She merely nodded and made a shooing motion with her hand. Grantaire fled from the room in a hurry to get away from her concern and so completely missed what classwork she was looking down at.

It was a selection of the year tens’ drawings of Grantaire. Some were unfinished, some were too simplistic, and most were less than perfect, but one stood out apart from the others. It was a sketch done by one of her more promising students. Nothing was technically brilliant about it, but the way that she had captured the exhaustion and bone-deep unhappiness that Grantaire seemed to perpetually carry around with him appeared to jump off the page. Madame Magloire stuck the picture onto the wall using a wad of blue-tack she found in her draw and stole glances at it every couple of minutes as she worked.

Well, I say ‘as she worked’. She didn’t get much work done, really. She was too caught up in worrying about the unhappy boy in the picture. Resolving to do anything she could to help him, she decided that she would find out exactly what was happening with him.

He _would _be safe and happy again. Or, perhaps, for the first time.

He had to be. Even if it took a little meddling to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Valjean and Madame Magloire are the parents that Grantaire deserves.
> 
> That is all.


	10. Enjolras and Grantaire Plot Their Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tutoring, powercuts and revenge, oh my!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I give a content warning for maths? I feel like I probably should.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Who the fuck decided adding fucking _epsilon _to this would make it better?!” Grantaire screeched before burying his head – which was beginning to hurt from all of the equations and formulae and whatever the fuck _calculus _was – in his hands. 

“Mathematicians,” replied Enjolras, unwavering in his pursuit of mathematical understanding (or at least competence) on the part of his boyfriend, “They are and always have been the scourge of teenage existence, but once you learn the rules it really isn’t so bad!”

The glare that Grantaire shot Enjolras then said far more than words ever could. If there was a word that could combine ‘are you serious right now?’, ‘you’ve got to be shitting me’ and ‘babe, I love you but please shut the fuck up’ then maybe that word would suffice.

Maybe.

This was their eleventh tutor session and Grantaire was hating every single second of it. Well, maybe not every _single _second, considering that Enjolras had a rather unprofessional tendency to use kisses – how ever brief they may be – as rewards for getting questions right. No matter the brief rewards though, he was seriously fighting the urge to pick up one of the many heavy textbooks on the table and bashing his own brains in with it.

“Besides,” Enjolras continued, making sure to mark the page as he closed the textbook on the table in front of him, “You’ve come so far in, what? Six weeks? You should be proud of yourself!”

Grantaire sighed dramatically, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head like an 80s teen movie rapscallion.

“I suppose the reason I’m getting better is because my tutor is so wonderful…” a cheeky smile played about his features as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Enjolras couldn’t help but laugh but he found himself blushing, nevertheless.

“That’s very nice of you to—”

“Oh, you didn’t let me finish,” Grantaire cut in, his smile now a fully-fledged grin, “I was going to say wonderfully _bossy_. Seriously, you are a nightmare in red when it comes to quadratics.”

Enjolras hummed, thoughtful. “Isn’t everybody?”

“Touché.”

Enjolras glanced at his watch. It was 4:15. They had been doing their thing – the tutoring thing, not the _other _kind of thing they did – for about fifty minutes by that point and, with only ten minutes left to go, Enjolras had to admit that he was flagging a little. It was only ten minutes until the end, he could make it through ten minutes for the sake of his boyfriend.

Or, at least, that was what he was telling himself.

Still, despite having the determination of, well, of Enjolras, all it took, in the end, for him to close the textbook entirely was one pleading look from Grantaire.

Really, for all of Enjolras’s supposed strengths and ambitions, he was weak when it came to Grantaire. Something about him just made Enjolras want to do everything in his power to make him as happy as possible. Perhaps it was because he knew how sad Grantaire's life had been at times or simply because he loved him, but all Enjolras wanted to see was that smile.

He had always wanted to make the world a better place. At first, it had been as a way to say ‘fuck you’ to his father, then it had been a matter of principle, and then, finally, for his friends. It was never for himself that he wanted the world to be a better place. That was until he started dating Grantaire. Then, he began wanting the world to be a better place so that he could watch Grantaire thrive in a happy and healthy world. He wanted to see how wonderful the world he and his friends would make together really _could_ be and he wanted to see it while holding Grantaire’s hand.

So they gave up on the tutoring thing for the day.

Quickly migrating over to the small, leather sofa in Enjolras’s living room, it was barely a minute before Grantaire had put _Brooklyn Nine-Nine _on the TV and they were intertwined together across the sofa in a sort of Gordian Knot of limbs and cuddles.

Enjolras had been rather reluctant to start watching _Brooklyn Nine-Nine _at first.

“It’s not like _The Big Bang Theory, _is it?” he had said, “Because I watched a few episodes of _that_ and it was… just… ugh.”

Grantaire had laughed, reassuring him wholeheartedly that _B99 _was not only actually funny but not rampantly sexist as _TBBT _tended to be.

Still, though, he had been wary.

He had sat through the first half of the first episode with the kind of critical glare on his face that Grantaire had, in the past, of course, found directed at himself when he was very loudly contributing absolutely nothing useful to a meeting. But by the time that Captain Holt was introduced, he was struggling not to crack a smile and when Mlep(clay)nos was onscreen, he was openly laughing. Since then, he had been hooked and Grantaire had no qualms whatsoever about rewatching all of the show with Enjolras.

Neither of them said or did much as they watched through their first episode of the day (s02e05 The Mole), perfectly content to just be with each other and soak up the laughter reverberating from each other. They paused between episodes to get drinks – Ribena, of course, Enjolras was doing his very best to make sure that Grantaire stopped drinking on weekdays – and to make out a little. They talked, too! It wasn’t all kissing and Ribena! There was just quite a lot of that.

“So how’s drama going?” Enjolras asked, sipping on his drink.

“Pretty good, I guess.” Grantaire took a sip of his drink before continuing, clearly using the time to decide what he was going to say next. “Actually,” he said, setting his drink down and looking down at the kitchen countertop they were leaning on rather sheepishly, “The department’s putting on a musical in May and Jehan’s been trying to convince me to audition. I don’t know whether I’m going to, though…” he trailed off.

Enjolras had to admit, he was a little shocked. Yes, drama seemed to be going well, but the memory of Grantaire’s father storming into that theatre in year eight that Enjolras had forced himself to recall so as to never forget it again. And, though Grantaire had reassured him time and time again that he wasn’t afraid of his father anymore, Enjolras didn’t believe him even slightly. On the other hand, perhaps Grantaire needed to do this play or musical or whatever to prove that he could, to prove that his father was out of his life for good and that he no longer had any influence over what he could do with his life.

He asked himself 'WWJBMD?' What would Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta do? And the moment that he asked himself that, he could practically hear Musichetta yelling at him through the void. _‘Just fucking support whatever choice he makes!’ _she would say. Well, Enjolras thought, I guess that’s what I’m going to do.

“Do you want to be in the play?” he asked, careful not to lead Grantaire towards a particular answer.

“The musical? Yeah, I think I do.”

“Then you should try out!” Enjolras said, sitting up in his patch of the sofa to look at Grantaire properly, “You’d be great in…” he trailed off, realising that he actually had no idea what musical they are actually doing. “Which musical is it?”

“_Be More Chill_,” he said as though that was supposed to mean something to Enjolras.

Enjolras’s blank expression must’ve been so shocking to Grantaire that he let out a full dramatic gasp.

Oh yeah. He was going to be great in drama.

“You’ve seriously never heard of _Be More Chill_?!” he shrieked, sitting bolt upright and scrambling about the seat cushions for the remote.

***

Ten minutes into the _Be More Chill_ soundtrack and Enjolras was more than a little confused. The musical had gone from this weird, techno instrumental to a teenager singing about masturbation to another teenager, whom the first teenager appeared to have a rather massive crush on, singing about how much she loves play rehearsal. It was chaotic and weird and, frankly, Enjolras only had a vague idea of what was going on, but he found that he couldn’t help the smile creeping onto his face at how well the opening number captured the teenage mind and the high school landscape.

Not to mention that Grantaire was continuously grinning like a dope. That alone could make Enjolras smile for an eternity.

When the next song started, Grantaire sprang into action, frantically pausing it.

“Okay, okay, okay, this is the character that Jehan wants me to try out for. His name’s Rich and he’s a humungous bisexual disaster – even though he doesn’t realise it until the end. He’s also kind of an asshole, but so am I sometimes—”

Enjolras opened his mouth to cut in and protest but Grantaire stopped him, knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“I said sometimes! And I am sometimes! If it makes you feel any better to hear, you’re kind of an asshole sometimes too.”

He shoved his shoulder good-naturedly and Enjolras pushed back, not stopping until his head was leaning on Grantaire’s shoulder. Grantaire pressed play on the live clip he had found of his character’s song and it commenced.

It was good. Perhaps Enjolras was biased, though. After all, he was having trouble not imagining Grantaire singing it and the amount of hip movement happening on screen was beginning to be rather distracting. In fact, when it got to the end, Enjolras had firmly filed the mental image away as something to be brought out later in a more, how do you say, _intimate _situation.

“Well?” Grantaire prompted, pulling Enjolras out of his rather explicit daydream. “What do you think? Should I go for the part?”

Pausing to think for a moment, Enjolras took in the sight in front of him. Grantaire looked beautiful (of course, he always looks beautiful) with his hair all wild from lying on the sofa for an hour, biting his nails – something Enjolras had come to notice he did when he was nervous – watching him expectantly.

“I think that I can’t imagine a better part for you and if that teacher Mademoiselle Favourite or whatever her name is¹ doesn’t choose you then she’s clearly just not very good at her job.”

Enjolras’s reassurance was both determined and resolute and it nearly brought Grantaire to tears. He’d had a long day, okay?

He stared at his Apollo for a few moments. He had the same determined glint in his eye that he had during meetings, his hair was becoming more and more mop-like by the second and there was a pretty pink blush fading from his cheeks that Grantaire had to actively steer himself away from pondering the cause of. He was perfect.

“How do you always know what to say, Apollo?”

“Given that you saw me tell the waitress in Pizza Express to enjoy her meal the other day, I think it’s safe to say that I don’t. But thank you anyway. You’re too kind to me sometimes.”

“Oh,” Grantaire said, his grin cheeky as he leaned in closer to Enjolras’s ear, “Would you like me to be a little meaner, then? A little more, how should I put it, _punishing_?”

Enjolras scoffed, ignoring the heat that had crept up the back of his neck at the low sound of Grantaire’s voice right next to his ear.

“Grantaire, could we please finish the episode we were on before we delve into my kinks?

They shared a sweet – not at all heated, no, not at all – kiss before settling back into the sofa to continue with _Brooklyn Nine-Nine._

***

Much to their dismay, though, about five minutes later, the power died. When the lights went out, Grantaire’s first instinct was to reach for Enjolras to make sure he was okay. Enjolras’s reaction, on the other hand, was a little less dramatic. Less scared about the axe murderer that could have cut the power were they living in a horror movie and more annoyed at life.

“Oh for fucks sake! I forgot about this.”

As it turned out, Mr Perfect-Memory-For-Any-Statistic-Used-To-Dismantle-Arguments had forgotten about the scheduled power loss he had been told about that morning by his mother. In fact, it was the only thing his mother had said to him that morning and yet he still somehow managed to forget it.

He chose to blame the lapse in memory on the mental image of Grantaire in Rich’s sleeveless hoodie, dancing and singing about squips.

Given that it was firmly into a mid-January evening, the moment that the lights went out, the two of them were plunged into darkness. With no shortage of knees and shins bashed on end tables and coffee tables, several candles were lit.

The candles bathed the room in golden light and Grantaire felt personally attacked by the way it made Enjolras look like he was some kind of ethereal being. Of course, Grantaire always thought that Enjolras looked like that but to see it in real life nearly shut down his brain completely.

“Seeing as we have been cut off from _Brooklyn Nine-Nine, _do you want to talk some more about drama? Or would you rather talk about something else?”

Grantaire thought for a moment. On one hand he could rant about how utterly tragic Rich’s storyline is and how much of a bastard the squip is, but, on the other hand, he could feel the beginnings of a strong knot of anxiety gnawing at his gut at the mere thought of his audition. Still, though, he struggled to come up with something else to talk about when all his mind was doing was obsessing over that one thing.

Then he knew.

“So what do you think of Éponine and Combeferre?” he asked, his grin unmissable even in the half-light of the candles.

Enjolras didn’t miss a beat, smiling too.

“Together, you mean?”

“Yep.”

“I think they would be great together. However, my duty as a best friend forbids me from revealing anything incriminating,” he paused to emphasise his point, “But, _hypothetically speaking_ of course, I _could_ say that it would not be entirely out of character for a certain best friend of mine to have been pining over a certain best friend of yours for a while now. Hypothetically of course.”

Grantaire nodded seriously.

“And, hypothetically, of course, I could say that perhaps a certain best friend of mine only just realised that she likes a certain best friend of yours and has since been having a crisis about having emotions.”

A beat of silence passed in which neither of them said anything, both too busy processing this new information to say anything.

That was, silence, until Grantaire gasped dramatically, clearly just having had a sort of _Eureka _moment. 

“Apollo, how do you feel about revenge?” he asked.

“That depends,” Enjolras replied rather cautiously, “who are we getting revenge on?”

“Our friends.”

“Oh.” He paused. “In that case, I’m in.”

Grantaire was a little dumbfounded by his boyfriend’s sudden change in attitudes – fickleness was not something Enjolras was particularly known for – but a smile spread across his face, nevertheless.

“I haven’t even told you how we’re getting our revenge! Or even why!”

Enjolras sighed and leaned back languidly against the sofa’s headrest.

“Grantaire, I know our friends and I love them with all of my heart, but if you say they deserve it, then they probably do. I love them but they are assholes.”

At that, Grantaire couldn’t help but throw his head back and laugh heartily.

It was true, too. Their friends were, at their cores, good people, but, _Jesus Christ,_ were they a bunch of assholes too sometimes.

A prime example of their assholery is the incident inspiring Grantaire’s plan. Yes, I am, in fact, referring to the scourge of betting pools the group had surrounding his and Enjolras’s relationship. Neither of them was actually particularly angry about the bets. In fact, Grantaire found the entire thing rather funny.

Still, a sense of humour is no reason not to embark on some good, old fashioned revenge.

“I want May.” Grantaire insisted.

“Good because I want August. There is no way they’ll communicate before at _least_ July!”

Grantaire scoffed.

“Please. Not everyone’s as emotionally constipated as we are. Besides, Ép doesn’t like letting things like this fester. She’ll be the one to confess mark my words.”

Even though he couldn’t see Enjolras’s fond eyeroll just then, Grantaire could feel it. In his soul.

“£15?” Enjolras asked, holding his hand out for Grantaire to shake it. And shake it he did.

And, if the handshake naturally morphed into them holding hands – and then into full-on cuddling (and a little more) on the uncomfortable sofa – then no one else was with them in the candlelit room to say anything about it.

¹ Enjolras knew her name perfectly well given that she is the one teacher – other than Valjean, Javert and Professeur Lamarque – to have taken any interest in the actual function of their social justice group. Javert only paid attention to them because he thought they were anarchists looking to destroy the school and inevitably all of civilisation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's pretty obvious from this just how much I fucking love power cuts. Candles and cuddles are just two of the perks!
> 
> Also, the clip of The Squip Song I was referencing in this chapter is here:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2tbFnXMmJY


	11. It's From Japan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick apology for if this chapter doesn't flow quite as well as it should! I wasn't able to spend as much time on this chapter as I usually do, but I promise that it was for a good reason! I'll tell you why in the end notes, but it really is a good reason. Please let me know in the comments if you see any grammatical errors because I have tried my best to proofread but I am exhausted so some might have clung on! Any corrections you have are greatly appreciated!
> 
> CW - THERE IS A BRIEF MENTION OF IMPLIED ALCOHOLISM SO BEWARE
> 
> Enjoy!

You know what they say about riding a bike, right?

Once you learn how to, you can’t unlearn. No matter how long you spend away from the handlebars, you can always come back and carry on as if no time has passed.

Grantaire hadn’t expected that to be the way it was getting back on the stage, but he was more than happy to find out that was indeed the case.

Technically speaking, the theatre at St Michel Upper School – some (probably Éponine or Bahorel) would call it a glorified auditorium – was the official local theatre of the entire south end of St Michel. Not particularly surprising given that there is only one other theatre in the entirety of St Michel and it sits comfortably in the north (expensive) end of town. It can house up to 2000 people (2050 if you’re willing to hold your breath, squeeze in, and bend the law) and, especially when the production is put on by either of the schools, routinely fills to capacity.

Yes, you read right, _either of the schools. _St Michel Lower School has never managed to get an auditorium of their own. They came close once, mind. They had an architect draft up a design and everything but, just when the drama department and the headteacher – who was sick of giving assemblies in the dining hall – thought they could rejoice, the funding was pulled. Budget cuts. You see because the government was and is comprised of old people who seemingly have forgotten in their senility that education _surprisingly _requires funding, that not everyone comes from a family where daddy can pay for a new wing to the western tower so that you get accepted.

This entire debacle had gone down four full years before our story began, just as Les Amis de l’ABC as we know them today were just barely scraping the beginning of year eight.

However, if there is one thing that Les Amis has always excelled at, it’s seeing when something is wrong and being angry about it.

As you can probably imagine, every single one of them was still bitter about the lower school’s auditorium, or lack thereof, during our story.

Well, every single one except for the actual drama kids.

Yes, of course, they were angry about it in principle, but, if they were to be totally honest, almost all of them were grateful for the opportunity to perform on the second largest stage in their city. In front of a packed audience no less. And Grantaire was just as grateful as the other drama kids.

You see, before the year eight incident at the performance of _Hamlet, _Grantaire had been a regular figure in _all _of the lower school’s drama productions. He played Oberon in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Corny Collins in _Hairspray_ and Kenickie in _Grease _and, if he had been asked, he would have said that he intended to do every play or musical that the school put on, no matter the size of the part he got.

He just loved the way theatre, even if it was school theatre, worked. The quiet, panicked rush behind the scenes when something complicated was about to happen set-wise, the antics between the off-stage actors waiting for their cues, dance battles between the tech crew and the actors during upbeat songs and slow dancing with anyone close by during the slow ones. He even loved how undeniably hectic the rehearsals got during the week leading up to the opening night.

It gave him a rush of happiness being at that theatre, knowing that there was a crowd out there waiting to see the results of all of their efforts and wanting them to like him so badly that his stomach felt not so much that it was full of butterflies at it was full of pterodactyls. Even that anxiety had brought him happiness in kind; he knew it was a precursor to joy. Of course, that was all before _Hamlet_ in year eight and the depression and the repression and the alcoholism and angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion¹.

So to be backstage at that theatre once again… and for everything to feel the same at it had before the depression, repression, alcoholism and angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion? It felt like some sort of magic. Or an amazing trip. Or perhaps like a prank show where everyone was about to jump out and tell him that it was a trick and that the theatre was pulled down years ago and this was all an elaborate ruse to make him feel emotions.

Grantaire waited.

No one jumped out.

The illusion didn’t fade for him t find himself sobering up on the floor in Montparnasse’s basement.

No wizard came to tell him to stop messing with magic.

It was real.

And that scared the shit out of him.

Don’t get me wrong, he was ecstatic, but Jesus was he scared too.

What made it worse, though, was that he could hear the current audition from backstage. It didn’t seem to be going great. Every time the poor girl would hit a bum note, Grantaire would internally cringe for her, making a mental note to be nice to her when she went past on her way out.

Turns out, he didn’t get the chance to compliment the poor girl because the moment she was sent offstage, he was called on.

From the moment Grantaire stepped back out onto that stage, that very same stage that had begun one of the worst nights of his life, is was as though something had possessed him. It was like slipping into his old skin only he was taller, older and gayer. He introduced himself and said which part he was auditioning for without being asked and, the moment he did, he was back in his element. He felt like one of those people who lose all their memories but still remember how to play the piano or speak Spanish or ride a motorcycle completely flawlessly.

Except it wasn’t quite flawless.

For as much of his audition that he couldn’t remember if he tried, Grantaire could recall, clear as day, hitting one or two flat notes and even saying the wrong word once. For once, though, he thanked Éponine silently for bullying him into taking dance classes with her in secret when her father had forced her into them. The dancing – unlike the singing and the acting which he was still a little out of practice with – came back as naturally as breathing.

Then his sixteen bars were up, and he was back heading off the stage.

“R!” Jehan exclaimed, slapping his arm excitedly. Someone, Grantaire was still too much in his post-audition daze to see who shushed them, prompting a set of perfectly plucked raised eyebrows from Jehan. “You were great!” they hissed.

Grantaire nodded his head in thanks, doing his best to find anything to distract himself from the bum-notes and missed lines floating around in his head unpleasantly, like potatoes in a bobbing apple competition.

“Where’s Courf gone?” he asked, coming back to himself finally and earning himself his own shush from the guy who’d shushed Jehan. They both ignored him, though, they did lower their voices a little so as to not be complete dicks to whatever poor sap was on stage.

“He went on just after you.”

Oh, right.

At least after Courfeyrac was done with _his _audition, their little group could skedaddle away from the theatre and to the ABC meeting that they were most definitely late for.

Except they weren’t.

Courfeyrac had come off the stage, elated as ever, and they were all just about to step out of the door when they heard a familiar voice coming from the stage.

“Hello, my name is Cosette Fauchelevent and today I am going to be auditioning for the role of Brooke.”

Huh.

Grantaire would not have pegged that in a million years.

Who knew Miss Perfect-Grades-In-Every-Academic-Subject herself was a secret musical theatre nerd?

Needless to say, Cosette left arm in arm with Jehan and Grantaire – Courfeyrac insisted on holding Jehan’s free hand – after her audition, firmly adopted by their little trio of drama geeks, now happily a quartet.

***

Given how much shit he had given Enjolras over the years for having so little chill, Grantaire really was trying his best to keep his cool, he really was, but the directors of the musical – Mademoiselle Favourite (obviously) and Dahlia the school infirmière (for some reason not yet apparent) – were not making it easy on him. On any of them really.

You see, the cast list had yet to be emailed around. Perhaps Grantaire was just being paranoid. Perhaps there had been some horrific accident and both Favourite and Dahlia had lost the ability to type up a cast list. Or maybe Grantaire just hadn’t been cast.

Somehow, Grantaire’s memory had managed to completely block out this part of the audition process. The worry, the anxiety, the self-doubt… it was almost too much to bear by the time Favourite glided into the room, clearly in a fluster.

“I am so sorry the cast list isn’t out yet!”

Well, that alleviated roughly two-thirds of his worries. Clearly, there had indeed been some freak accident that she had lost the ability to type. It was the only other option!

“We’ve just been having some disagreements over the casting. Nothing to worry about.”

Oh, yeah. Or that worked too.

“I promise the email will have gone around by this time next week,” she said, sounding genuinely apologetic, “But, in the meantime, we do have work to be doing, so if you could all get out your copies of the book and turn to page 96, please. Jehan, if you would be so kind as to read from the top of the page to the bottom of the next.”

Having already read the passage in question, Grantaire found himself tuning out Jehan’s voice for favour of his incredibly loud thoughts about the musical.

Had he got the part? If not, why not? And, did he even really want to know?

Of course, he wanted to know! Not knowing was slowly killing him! The waiting period that always comes after auditions have always been, and always will be, the very worst part of theatre. Grantaire shuddered at the mere thought of having to deal with the audition process professionally. Ugh. It’s a good thing that Grantaire’s true skill lay with art and that no one on the face of the earth will ever be as critical of his art than he is himself. He could imagine it now.

“Ha! Jokes on you, guy-who-won’t-put-my-art-in-his-museum! You completely forgot to mention how sloppy my brushwork is!”

Aside from art, probably Grantaire’s most useful skill is avoiding his feelings – I know, truly shocking – and so tuned back into the lesson just as Jehan came to the end of the passage, going by the logic that his anxious thoughts couldn’t catch up with him if he filled his brain with opinions of how gay Hamlet and Horatio are.

Gays 1 – Anxiety 0.

***

Later at The Sanctuary, Jehan, Courfeyrac and Grantaire had gathered together with everyone (including Cosette, Combeferre and Marius who had never been there before and so were rather confused as to why they were crouching in the park in January) to give them the news of the delayed cast list. Well, I say they gathered everyone together. In reality, Grantaire invited Enjolras and Éponine, knowing that Gavroche would tag along anyway, Jehan invited Bahorel and Feuilly, and Courfeyrac invited Combeferre. On their way to the park, Courfeyrac had run into Cosette and Marius, dragged them both along by the hands and neither of them had asked any questions.

Technically speaking, Musichetta, Bossuet and Joly were all invited but none of them had picked up the texts and the rest had assumed they wouldn’t be going.

However, not one single member of their group bet on the trio already being at The Sanctuary.

In various states of undress.

After some speedy dressing – scored by a soundtrack of good-natured wolf whistles on the part of Éponine, Bahorel, Feuilly, Grantaire and Courfeyrac until Enjolras and Combeferre told them to cut it out – Musichetta, Bossuet and Joly were fully clothed once more.

Still blushing, the three sat slightly apart from the group to listen to the news and, though no one said anything, everyone felt at least slightly bad for interrupting their little sesh. God knows, between Joly’s rigorous studying practices, Bossuet’s helicopter parents and the thin walls at Musichetta’s house, they had little time for _‘hanky panky’ – _as Javert breaking up a couple kissing in the hallway was inclined to calling it.

“That sucks, dude,” Gavroche said after being told the news.

Murmurs of agreement swept over the group and Enjolras couldn’t help but scowl at the small injustice of his friends having to wait in such an anxious state for possibly another week. Nevertheless, he swallowed his anger and kept silent, knowing that getting worked up about it would just make the actual people affected by the situation worse.

Say what you will about Enjolras sometimes being too brash, but the guy possesses some killer impulse control. Of course, that impulse control goes out the window when it comes to Grantaire, but that’s an exception. Probably.

“So who did you all audition for?” he asked instead, his scowl fading to a more neutral, interested expression.

“Michael,” said Courfeyrac, pausing his hummed rendition of _Michael in the Bathroom _to answer.

“Brooke,” answered Cosette, earning a raised eyebrow from Enjolras. He was struggling to imagine Cosette as the insecure stepping-stone-love-interest for Jeremy but chose not to say anything for fear of a vicious debate starting for which he was woefully underprepared.

Finally, he turned to face Jehan who had climbed halfway up one of the trees and was scribbling something – probably some of the endless stream of poetry that their mind somehow seemed to come up with – into a rather tattered notebook.

“The Squip.” They said it as though it was just some passing fancy and, yet, Enjolras was flabbergasted.

“But The Squip is such an asshole! You’re too nice!” he exclaimed, fully turning his body towards Jehan.

“Dear boy,” they sighed, not bothering to lower their notebook, “it’s _acting _it’s not supposed to be like me.”

“Still!” Enjolras persisted, looking round the group for some kind of backup. He found none in the amused expressions the rest of his friends seemed to be wearing. “I can’t imagine you saying all the horrible things to people that The Squip says!” And he really couldn’t. In Enjolras’s eyes, Jehan couldn’t possibly provide the level of assholery and verbal abuse required of The Squip.

“Apollo, you’ve never seen Jehan go feral before, have you?” Grantaire cut in, finally taking pity on his floundering boyfriend.

“Feral? Like a stray cat?”

“No. Like a wild cat. Big difference,” Feuilly clarified, passing the bottle of wine that seemed to have appeared from nowhere over to Bahorel.

“Last year Jehan went off at Tholomyes for trying to send me out of lesson for my skirt being too short,” Éponine supplied, pausing to take a swig of the wine that had been passed to her, “It was pretty explosive. I was genuinely impressed.”

“It was hot.” Courfeyrac shot a wink over at Jehan who, in turn, blew a kiss back over. The group as a whole groaned at their cuteness. Enjolras and Grantaire in particular, though, were more than a little pleased that they weren’t the only ones being heckled for the slightest bit of PDA anymore. And so they groaned the loudest out of everyone.

It’s not petty if it’s justifiable revenge.

Or, at least, that’s what Enjolras decided as he booed his friends.

No more than twenty minutes later, the wine bottle had been finished and, quite understandably, Enjolras had assumed that that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

As it turned out, Montparnasse had gifted Grantaire three bottles of wine a week before – some kind of a belated Christmas gift – and Éponine had guilt-tripped Grantaire into sharing at least two of them with the rest of the group. At the time, she had claimed that it was because she wanted some but Enjolras, though he didn’t know her quite to the level that some of the others did, knew better. Though she didn’t show it, Grantaire’s drinking worried Éponine as much as it worried Enjolras and, for her intervention, he was incredibly grateful. After all, Grantaire had stopped drinking completely during the school week (Fridays being the exception due to his argument that after school on a Friday is technically the weekend) and he apparently hadn’t had a hangover since the day Enjolras punched him in the face. Enjolras was so proud of him, a fact that he insisted on reiterating to Grantaire every week or so that he went without getting drunk enough to be hungover the next day.

In fact, as the group lounged about in The Sanctuary, the second of the three bottles being passed around at a leisurely pace, Enjolras felt the need to lean over and whisper into his boyfriend’s ear just how proud he was.

He would have said this praise out loud but, as he had discovered around three weeks before during a game of Chinese Whispers, Grantaire had something of a _thing _for Enjolras whispering things to him. It didn’t even have to be something dirty for a pretty pink blush to spread over the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks in a way that made Enjolras’s chest ache with a warm, pleasant, fluttery feeling. The blush deepened rather significantly when he impulsively – though Grantaire tended to make him act more like this in general, Enjolras suspected the few swigs of wine he’d had (his tolerance being so low) had made him all the more brazen in his actions – pressed a slow but slightly chaste kiss to the patch of neck just below his ear that Enjolras knew he liked oh so much.

And if their friends saw any of this, not a single one of them bat an eyelid.

***

¹Jehan convinced him to watch rom coms when he was feeling down. Generally speaking, Grantaire hates most of them, but so far _10 Things I Hate About You _and _Grosse Point Blank _were exceptions. Don’t tell Jehan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from 'The Squip Song' from Be More Chill. Seriously, just listen to it.
> 
> Okay, my reason for being under proofread this week is because... 
> 
> I ONLY WENT AND SAW LES MISÉRABLES ON STAGE, DIDN'T I!?!!!?! I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT SEEING IT ON STAGE FOR THE FIRST TIME BUT ALL I CAN REALLY ARTICULATE NOW IS THAT IF YOU HAVE TO OPPORTUNITY TO SEE IT, FUCKING GO FOR IT!!!!! IT IS WORTH EVERY PENNY I PROMISE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Sorry for shouting but you just gotta see it if you get the chance!


	12. Okay, This Time Grantaire REALLY Needs That Nap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW - EXHAUSTION, IMPLIED/REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, IMPLIED/REFERENCED ALCOHOLISM, REFERENCES TO DEATH, ARGUMENTS, TERRIBLE FUCKING COMMUNICATION (when isn't their communication terrible?), SMOKING.
> 
> Okay, this is not a particularly fluffy chapter and I do apologise for that but, as a thank you for putting up with me, I have something special planned for next week! I'll say a little more in the endnotes but for now...
> 
> Enjoy!

Enjolras had never really had anything that he considered himself to be properly good at. He had always just muddled on, just doing well enough at everything for no one to ask any questions he didn't want to answer. Then he had met Combeferre and Courfeyrac and had bothered to excel at things. He pushed himself to do well in school, keeping his head down and trying to avoid the feelings of frustration he felt whenever he looked at the state of the world and did his best to tune out all of the people who had called him weird for caring about tax reform at age ten. Then, though, then, he had started Les Amis de l’ABC. Suddenly, he had people who actually took the time to get to know him and decided that they wanted to be his friends anyway! Rapidly his friendship group had expanded from just two boys who had been his friends because they loathed seeing him sit alone in the playground to everyone he had come to love since then. In the club he’d found true friends and a place where he felt truly safe to be 100% himself but, more than that, he’d found something he was good at.

He was good at making noise.

Such a skill was present in every single one of them, but in Enjolras was where it truly blossomed.

So there he was. Making noise at his usual place at the front of the room, his friends’ attentions caught and held in his grasp.

“… That is why today we shall discuss what we can do to help the homeless of St Michel. It is of paramount importance that we all—” he stopped suddenly. Les Amis looked at each other in confusion and Combeferre coughed lightly, prompting Enjolras to continue the way he usually would when his friend would get a little distracted.

Enjolras getting distracted was not a particularly common occurrence but when it happens there are only four things that could be the cause.

  1. He’s come up with something that he deems more important than his current topic.
  2. He has had minimal sleep and his brain is trying to compensate by shutting down momentarily.
  3. There has been an actual, legitimate natural disaster and Enjolras has been thrown to the ground by the inevitable tremors accompanying the end of the world.

Or, by far the most common reason of the four.

  1. Grantaire is looking especially pretty and Enjolras’s mouth just stops working because all of the blood has begun to rush to… other… places…

But, in this case, the reason was exactly none of the above.

“Where’s Grantaire?” he asked, turning to Combeferre and Courfeyrac on his left for answers. They shrugged in unison with Combeferre adding an entirely unhelpful ‘I don’t know’. Enjolras turned to Éponine then, her generally being the authority on all things Grantaire, and all.

Growing up the way she did, it is no wonder how Éponine became such a formidable liar.

When she wants to be, that is.

You have to understand, dear reader, that sometimes she wants to _not _be such a good liar, to be able to lead people to the truth whilst not explicitly giving it away herself. Conceivably one could say that that simply makes her a better liar, that it makes her cunning.

That would almost certainly be correct.

Éponine has always been undeniably cunning. Every major and minor decision calculated to help her or the people she loves in one way or another, even if it specifically goes against what one of those people has asked her to do. For example, two nights previously.

“What’s going on, R?” she had demanded as she poked the poor guy awake from where he’d fallen asleep on the sofa.

“Huh?” he had replied dumbly, rubbing his eyes before shifting the calculus textbook in his lap to the floor.

“You know what I’m talking about. You’re exhausted all the time, I haven’t even seen you in the general vicinity of a vegetable for weeks and more and more often you’re coming back from a free period stinking of smoke! What’s going on?!”

And suddenly the flood gates had opened.

“Ponine, I’m so tired!” he had practically wailed, “I just want to rest but I can’t because every time I try I end up thinking about my fucking dad and fucking maths and fucking… everything else!”

It had taken forty minutes for Grantaire to stop crying onto her shoulder and another five on top of that to subtly push the snickerz – Gavroche had heard Grantaire’s crying and had dashed in and out in a matter of seconds – into his hand. There was silence as Grantaire ate the chocolate, the only sound in the room was the sound of the rapper, and several beats more afterwards during which neither of the two teens could quite work out what to say.

Finally, Grantaire had spoken.

“Please don’t tell Enjolras,” he said, looking at Éponine pleadingly.

She had agreed at the time but knew that her brother could not go on like that.

Perhaps that is why she made no attempt whatsoever to lie well to Enjolras when he asked her where he was.

She knew exactly where Grantaire was, of course. He was in Madame Magloire’s art room having a nap. He had asked her to go and wake him up when it was time for the meeting but, obviously, she hadn’t. Even this action, though, was calculated.

It was time for Enjolras to know.

“I don’t know.” It was unconvincing by design. “All I know is he said he was going to finish up his painting for the day and go home.”

Enjolras sighed and turned back to his best friends.

“Cover for me?” he asked.

“Of course,” responded Combeferre just as Courfeyrac also replied.

“Always,” he said, the both of them smiling at him encouragingly and Courfeyrac making a playful shooing motion with his hand.

Enjolras was out of the door without another word.

***

For the first time in weeks, Grantaire wasn’t having a nightmare.

In fact, his dream was peaceful in a way that nothing in his life had been for what felt like a lifetime.

In his dream, he was in the art room except he wasn’t. It was the art room but without hundreds of pieces of art collected over years and years plastered to every vertical surface, without the horrible, uncomfortable workbenches that were very clearly some distant, unpleasant relative of a church pew, without the humongous whiteboard at the front of the room and without the awful fluorescent lighting that had been installed sometime in the mid-nineties and hadn’t been moved since. Instead, canvasses of Grantaire’s work were propped up against slouchy furniture. Beanbags and sofas took up any space not used by Grantaire, his paints and his easel. A feeling of contentment and peacefulness seemed to pour out of the speakers instead of music, washing over him as he stroked his brush to the canvas, depositing colour confidently and deliberately. The room itself was bathed in a kind of peachy, golden light that made Grantaire feel as though he was _literally _looking through rose-tinted glasses.

All in all, it was lovely.

Then he woke up.

***

Being that it was after school on a Friday, Enjolras had assumed that the classroom would be empty.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Of course, he knew that art students would sometimes stay behind after school to be able to meet their deadlines. Feuilly had taken art at GCSE and during that time, if one were to look for him, he would be in his art room more often than not. However, never would Enjolras have thought that an entire class worth of students would be studiously working over a myriad of A2 sheets with hunched backs and frowning faces in the smaller of the two rooms. The students were very clearly incredibly stressed and, yet, the room had the kind of easy-going atmosphere that always seemed to surround art students. Or, at least, the art students he had known at GCSE (Grantaire, Jehan, Feuilly and Bahorel).

Speaking of Grantaire, once again he was nowhere to be found.

_Maybe he actually went home, _he thought, feeling slightly hurt at the prospect of, not only Grantaire skipping the meeting but, his boyfriend going home for the weekend without saying goodbye. Ever the optimist, Enjolras pulled out his phone.

No messages.

If he had gone home, then, he really just hadn’t said goodbye.

His hurt feeling continued to grow and grow as he made his way out of the classroom, fully feeling like crawling into bed and sleeping for a century by the time he reached the corridor. So confused and hurt was Enjolras that he completely missed the sound of Madame Magloire calling his name from the doorway to the larger of the two art rooms. It took her jogging over to him – quite the sight to see given that on this particular day she was a vision in fluorescent pink and orange tie-dye – and tapping him on the shoulder for him to finally pay attention.

“Enjolras!” she hissed at him, glaring at the class full of students on the other side of the corridor, many of whom were nosily glancing at the two of them through the open door.

“Sorry, Madame. I was zoning out a bit there. Can I help you with something?”

“I think you can, actually,” she said, turning back towards her art room and gesturing for Enjolras to follow, “I have something I need you to take off my hands.”

“Uh… sure?” he replied rather dumbly, not exactly sure what to do, “What is it you want me to…?” he trailed off as he entered the empty art room.

Suddenly everything made so much more sense.

“Ah,” he said simply.

There he was. Grantaire. Enjolras’s boyfriend. The only person he had ever truly loved.

And he was drooling on a beanbag.

“I would’ve woken him up when the bell went but he’s just been so exhausted for weeks… ever since that fiasco with his father coming here and all that, you know?”

_No, Enjolras_ thought, _I don’t know. What don’t I know?_

Then he shook himself out of it.

Priorities, Enjolras! He scolded himself mentally.

Also, Madame Magloire was still talking, and he should probably pay attention to her.

“… I just can’t imagine the amount of stress that he’s under,” She continued. “I mean, he can’t have been sleeping much at home given how much he sleeps here during his frees. I swear my year nines have been painting him more than the bowl of fruit over there!” she gestured over to the most cliché artist’s still life bowl of fruit Enjolras had ever seen in his life with a small smile. Then, she sighed, looking back down at where Grantaire was sprawled over two beanbags with a half-eaten packet of crisps in his lap.

“I supposed you’re going to have to wake him up to get him home, aren’t you?” She sounded reluctant and genuinely worried which, in any other situation, might have made Enjolras smile. He was just happy that Grantaire had an actual adult on his side, okay?

***

As Grantaire opened his eyes, he was groggy, to say the least, and the fact that Enjolras was still shaking him lightly didn’t help as he was trying to orient himself.

Wait. Enjolras?

Yes, sure enough, it was Enjolras beside Madame Magloire, staring down at him and looking as concerned for his wellbeing as she perpetually seemed to be. In his sleep-addled state, questions were flying through Grantaire’s mind faster than he could comprehend and, despite his best (tired) efforts to hold it back, the cognisant thought to appear in his mind flew right out of his mouth and into existence.

“Coffee,” he said groggily. It was neither a question nor a demand and therefore required no real response, but Madame Magloire shook her head vehemently anyway.

“No,” she said as though the violent shaking of her head wasn’t enough on its own, “No caffeine for you. Enjolras here is going to take you home and put you straight to bed.”

Enjolras was visibly taken aback for a moment, likely a bi-product of always wearing his heart on his sleeve and clearly not having been told the plan, but he regained his composure quickly enough. He opened his mouth to say something, but Madame Magloire cut him off, continuing the rant she had already begun.

“Do you remember those, R? Beds?” she asked, well more _demanded _the sarcasm practically dripping from her voice. It was odd, seeing their relationship as Enjolras was seeing it now. To be honest, the way Madame Magloire spoke to Grantaire reminded him of the way Éponine spoke to him. And, yet, there was some softness and concern to her admonishment that reminded him more of the way Valjean had spoken to Cosette the few times that he’d had the opportunity to see them interact. On the whole, the interaction was… Enjolras was struggling to think of the word.

The closest thing to that kind of relationship that he had was his with Combeferre in the moments when he began to lose his well-maintained control over his passion and anger and frustration that the world wasn’t the way that he genuinely believed it could be. At the Bahorele time, though, it wasn’t like that at all.

Parental.

That’s the word.

Maybe it’s because Enjolras didn’t have that kind of bond with his actual parents – or something else as typically year one of a psychology course – that he didn’t dare argue with Madame Magloire’s sudden plan. Or, then again, maybe it was just because she scared the shit out of him. Who’s to say? Either way, the moment the teacher’s rant was done, Enjolras was pulling Grantaire out of the room in silence, doing his best to ignore to confusion and anger than was bubbling into his own rant just under his skin.

“Just please take care of him, Enjolras!” Madame Magloire called after them as he half-dragged Grantaire through the door and out of the art room.

He knew it was rude for him not to offer any kind of response to the woman who clearly cared so much for his boyfriend, but, with the way Enjolras’s mind was racing and trying to process the new information regarding Grantaire’s father _coming to the school, _he couldn’t spare a single brain cell for social niceties. He had more important things to think about.

And think about them he did.

Throughout the silent uber ride – yes, Enjolras ordered an uber and, yes, it pained him to do so (carbon emissions and unfairly treated workers and all that) but the thought of lugging his fairly densely muscled (for his height) boyfriend even the short distance to his house made him want to walk into oncoming traffic – his thoughts raced at 100 mph as he tried to work out exactly how much he didn’t know and why he didn’t know it. Concerning the latter question, Enjolras’s main struggle was working out whether he had just been incredibly dense for however long Grantaire had been dealing with this on his own (definitely a possibility) or whether this had been purposefully hidden from him (also a possibility but he _so _wished that it wasn’t).

Still, he kept his mouth shut.

All he wanted was some answers. Or, at least, that’s how he would have justified yelling at Grantaire the moment they stumbled through the front door. But, in reality, that wasn’t _all _he wanted.

He also wanted his boyfriend to be okay. As hurt and as angry as Enjolras was at Grantaire, he wasn’t a monster.

So, he held himself together until Grantaire was in his bed and he had some time to step into the shower.

Then he let himself fall apart.

***

Grantaire only had vague memories of being hauled out of the school, only a flashing image of a car ride before sweet, sweet sleep overtook him once more.

Waking up in Enjolras’s bed was not an uncommon experience for Grantaire at this point – strictly sleeping cuddling and the occasional hand/blow job, nothing scandalous, Enjolras wasn’t ready for the whole shebang (pun intended) and he was completely okay with that, get your mind out of the gutter – but waking up in Enjolras’s bed alone was a whole other kettle of fish.

In hindsight, that should have probably been his first hint that something was wrong.

The second hint came a minute or two later when he found Enjolras sitting outside on the deck in the pouring. He was hunched underneath a beach umbrella, lit cigarette in one hand and ice cream bowl acting as a makeshift ashtray in the other.

“You don’t smoke,” Grantaire pointed out, joining him underneath the umbrella and trying to ignore the way the wet wood of the deck felt underneath his bare feet. Enjolras took a drag and coughed a little before setting the cigarette between Grantaire’s lips.

“I don’t,” he agreed, passing the bowl scattered with ash over, “But Jehan says they’re calming, and one fell out of your coat pocket, so I thought ‘what the hell’.”

Grantaire nodded, breathing in the smoke and letting the warmth almost scorch his throat. There were several beats of silence then. Grantaire wasn’t sure what to say and Enjolras seemed to be making no efforts to fill the silence, so they just let it hang there. Despite their friends’ opinions, they did, in fact, stop talking to each other (_screaming at _had been their exact words) every so often and so silence was no stranger in their relationship. This silence, though… it was _not _that Bahorele comfortable, companionable silence that they were used to in between conversations. This was heavy. Enjolras, for once in his life, was holding back things that he was almost desperate to say, and Grantaire was frankly lost for what he was supposed to do. Or, rather, what he had already done that lead to whatever was happening right at that moment.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I need to be calmed down?” Enjolras demanded more than asked.

Grantaire was taken aback for a moment. He had not expected Enjolras of all people to go down the route of passive aggression. Really, that wasn’t his style at all.

“Sorry,” he said, though he still wasn’t sure what he was apologising for, “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m not fucking okay!” he exploded. _Well, _Grantaire thought rather ruefully, _at least the passive aggression’s gone. _“Why didn’t you tell me your dad came to the school?!”

Oh.

Shit.

“Uh…” he began, but Enjolras wasn’t finished.

“I only know because Madame Magloire let it slip today! When did this happen?! Were you even planning on telling me?!”

Grantaire gawked at him for a moment, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Enjolras this hysterical or unhinged before.

“Well?” he prompted, hands on his hips and the umbrella teetering dangerously from where it had been balanced on his shoulder.

“I, uh,” he paused to clear his throat awkwardly, “It happened about… uh… three weeks ago. Just after the Christmas holidays.”

Enjolras’s mind seemed to stutter briefly as he processed the new information.

“Three weeks?” he clarified, his voice almost disturbingly calm. He didn’t wait for Grantaire to nod or to show any other kind of affirmation. He simply grabbed his hand and tugged him back inside the house with a kind of horrible determination.

“Apollo… What are y—”

“There is an extremely high chance that we are going to have an argument and, if we do, I don’t want all of my snooty, interfering neighbours to hear it, okay?”

Grantaire daren’t ask how he knew they were going to argue because he, though he didn’t want to admit it, already knew how. He could feel it himself. Everything had been so good in their relationship so far and, to be honest, with the way they used to scream at each other on an almost daily basis, it felt like they had been building a house of cards. The impending, inevitable argument was the breeze that was going to knock it all down.

Or, at least, that’s what Grantaire thought.

And that thought scared the shit out of him.

Enjolras positioned them both in the very middle of the living room, shifting the small coffee table aside with his foot, and Grantaire tried his best not to notice that they were facing each other like duelling partners.

“Okay,” Enjolras began, pausing to clear his throat and shrug off the damp coat that he had been wearing, “Before this happens, I want you to know that I love you. So much.”

“I love you too, Apollo,” he replied, almost as if on instinct.

“Okay, here we go.”

***

Once the _‘I love you’_s had been said, it was like a switch flipped in Enjolras’s mind. All of the anger and hurt and sadness that he had been suppressing over the last four hours that Grantaire had been sleeping was free to run about his mind in one out of control stampede of confusion and, all of a sudden, he was yelling.

“So?!” he demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to scare you,” Grantaire explained as earnestly as he could.

“If you don’t tell me these things, how can we deal with them together?” Enjolras’s tone was almost patronising, as though he were a teacher speaking to a boisterous child.

Being as tired as he was, it was no wonder that Grantaire was low on patience. He hadn’t slept for longer than four hours consecutively since the incident with his father and, honestly, most days he wasn’t sure whether he was going to explode in a bright ball of pure rage or just break down crying over a knocked-over paint-water pot. Even his undying and intense love for Enjolras couldn’t stop the bitterness and anger at the world – and, presently, at Enjolras – that he was feeling from bubbling to the surface.

“We don’t,” he said shortly, clenching his jaw as if biting back his words. In truth, he hadn’t initially meant for his words to sound so cold, really he hadn’t, but, once they came out, he found that he didn’t mind, that he indeed felt like being a little cold. _What the hell, _he thought, _why shouldn’t I be an asshole if he’s being one too. _

“We don’t?” Enjolras raised his eyebrows, the teacher-like tone still there making Grantaire’s blood boil the way it had before.

“These are my problems,” he said, “Not yours.”

“No, they are my problems _because _they are your problems!” Enjolras was exasperated now; his hands were beginning to fly about as he spoke – a sure-fire sign that he was losing grip of the carefully maintained control he had over his more explosive emotions.

Not that Grantaire wasn’t losing control a little too.

“Jesus, Enjolras! You can’t fix everything!” he exclaimed, his voice growing unintentionally louder the more irritated he got.

“I’m not trying to!” Enjolras was shouting too, caught off guard by Grantaire actually using his full name for once instead of the almost dozen alternatives he had come up with over the years.

“Yes, you are!” Grantaire insisted, practically hissing it at his boyfriend. “You’re trying to fix me!” he accused, his shouting taking on a bitter tone that saddened Enjolras to his core. “But, uno problemo, Apollo! I’m broken. I’m un-fixable. So you might as well give up because I don’t want your help!”

“I don’t believe that. No one is beyond help. Sometimes it’s just a little harder is all!” With the way he smiled, Enjolras must’ve been trying to reassure Grantaire that he wasn’t indeed ‘beyond help’, but all Grantaire saw was pity.

Pity he most certainly didn’t want.

And, seeing that pity on the face of someone he loved so much, it almost blinded him with bitter rage.

“So you’re saying I’m not trying hard enough to overcome the absolute, abominable shitstorm my life has become?!” He was yelling now, he could tell, but he simply didn’t care enough to stop. “Oh!” he exclaimed, mocking the happy expression of someone having an epiphany, none of the smile in his eyes, “Maybe, if I’d just tried harder in the first place my father would have never hit me!”

“Grantaire—” Enjolras tried to cut him off to argue back but Grantaire didn’t give him a chance.

“Maybe if I’d tried harder, my mother wouldn’t have left! Maybe if I’d tried harder, my aunt, the only person in my family who ever showed me any kind of love, wouldn’t have crawled into a bottle and I wouldn’t have found her dead in a puddle of her own vomit. Yeah. You’re right, Enjolras! I’ll just try harder!”

Grantaire ignored the tears streaming down his face – he didn’t remember beginning to cry – and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door in his wake.

***

Left in the aftermath of what had happened, Enjolras wasn’t sure what to do. Part of him wanted to scream and cry in frustration. If Grantaire had just stopped to let him explain what he had meant there would have been no need for such dramatics! Another part of him, though, wanted to chase him down the road and apologise for whatever he had done. _Then again_, that part of him considered, _what had he done wrong? _He wasn’t sure and so spent the next twenty minutes angrily wondering what the hell had just happened.

***

Not so far away, Grantaire was also angry. Not just at Enjolras, though that was a significant portion of his anger at that present moment, but also at himself for forgetting to grab his shoes on his way out.

He had been walking in the vague direction of Éponine’s house for no longer than ten minutes, probably less, and already his feet were beginning to kill him. The only consolation for his aching feet and his aching heart was the light of the 24-hour corner shop beckoning him over.

The cheap 70s lino on the floor of the corner shop was almost heaven compared to the rough tarmac of the pavement. And that’s saying something considering it didn’t feel dissimilar to actual sandpaper. Perhaps it was a combination of his feet hurting and his limbs being as heavy as lead from the weeks’ worth of missed sleep but something about this entire goddamn situation that pushed Grantaire towards the liquor aisle.

From then on it was no contest what he was going to buy.

He only dithered briefly in imagining how disappointed Enjolras would be in him for drinking an entire bottle when he’d been doing so well.

But, then again, Enjolras was being an asshole and Grantaire was way too tired to give a shit.

He knew he should stop using his exhaustion as an excuse to do stupid shit, but, frankly, Grantaire didn’t really care. So distraught over his fight with his blistering feet and his fight with Enjolras and just his life as a whole, he barely hesitated in picking up the bottle and paying for it with the pittance he hadn’t expected to find in his pockets.

The man behind the counter looked about as tired as Grantaire felt. He took the money without saying a word about checking IDs and sent him on his way. Maybe he just wanted Grantaire out of his shop.

I mean, who could blame him?

What he must’ve looked like. Hair wild, clothes crumpled, tear-stained cheeks, bare feet and a large bottle of tequila in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. I'm a bit evil sometimes. But someone had to punish them for their terrible communication skills!
> 
> And, now, a little hint on what's to come next week...
> 
> All I'll say is that Éponine is so completely done with Grantaire and Enjolras. The only question is: Are Grantiare and Enjolras done with each other?


	13. Éponine Is Sick Of Your Bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is basically half of the chapter I wanted to write for this week (despite it being 4.6k) but I will post the rest next week, I promise. The only reason I ended up splitting it like this is that it ended up being so damn long! The entirety of the two parts of this chapter was meant to be somewhere around 6k but, clearly, that is not what the case ended up being. I'll explain more in the endnotes but, for now...
> 
> Enjoy!

Left to stew in his anger and regret, Enjolras hardly noticed his phone ringing. In fact, he didn’t notice it at all. It wasn’t until the third time it began ringing that he was broken out of his post-fight trance, pressing the answer button with far more force than was strictly necessary.

“What?” he demanded irritably at whoever had decided to FaceTime him when he was having such a terrible evening.

“Nice to see you too, sunshine,” Courfeyrac said over the phone, his eyebrows raised and a smirk growing across his lips, “Hope we aren’t interrupting anything! Speaking of, where is R?”

Now, Enjolras had never been the kind of person to cry easily. In fact, he could count on both hands the number of times he had cried since he was six years old and still have enough fingers left to flip off a fascist. It wasn’t that he had anything particularly _against_ crying, it was just something he didn’t find himself doing often. He wasn’t sure that he had cried multiple times in one day since he was a baby so one could forgive him for thinking he had done all of the crying that he needed to do earlier in the shower. That being said, though, just then, after everything that had happened since then, Enjolras couldn’t help the way his lip began to quiver.

“Enj?” Combeferre asked concerned, leaning over Courfeyrac’s shoulder to get a better look at their friend, “Are you alright?”

Then the dam burst.

All of a sudden were tears streaming down his cheeks, leaving stinging tracks of angry red in their wake.

“Oh, Enjolras,” Courfeyrac said, knowing that something really bad must’ve happened for it to result in Enjolras, of all people, crying.

“_What happened?_” Combeferre implored sounding genuinely confused more than anything else. Which, one would suppose, was to be expected given the last time he’d seen Enjolras he had been rushing off to go and be with his boyfriend, a situation that usually ended with Enjolras having a dopey smile and flushed cheeks. What on earth could have--?

Oh.

The realisation hit Combeferre and his blood ran cold, hoping that he was just making a big deal out of nothing instead of the alternative. Or the alternative to the alternative, he supposed, given the series of events that led to Enjolras and Grantaire getting together in the first place – not that he believed Grantaire would _ever _do something like that again. Well, he _hoped. _

When he spoke once more, Combeferre’s voice was measured and deliberate and, to those who knew him, audibly seconds away from fury.

“What happened, Enjolras? What did Grantaire do? Did he hurt you?”

“What?!” Enjolras exclaimed incredulously, “God, no! He didn’t _hurt _me! He’s just being a stubborn-headed, over-sensitive asshole.” The ‘as per usual’ went unsaid and Combeferre found himself sighing. He sighed partially out of relief but most because Jesus Christ he had thought they were over having these petty, little squabbles!

“Just tell us what happened, Enj,” Courfeyrac said, taking over from Combeferre who was beginning to seem exasperated in the extreme.

Enjolras shook his head, wiped his tears and cleared his throat, clearly preparing himself to relive the events of the evening in the same painstaking detail that he did when using anecdotes to illustrate a point at meetings. It was strange how much of Enjolras’s behaviour in his day to day life could be linked to those meetings if one were so inclined to do so. The other members of the group were just the same way, though, and Combeferre and Courfeeyrac were no exception. They listened with rapt attention as Enjolras went over every major event of the evening, only deciding halfway through to include the part about him smoking (which Combeferre had made them both promise never to do when they were ten) to illustrate how insufferable Grantaire was being that he – using Enjolras’s exact words – “Didn’t even _act_ concerned that I was doing something I had expressed _severe_ distaste for in the past!”¹

“And then!” he continued, nearly dropping his phone with the amount of gesticulating he was doing, “He accused me of trying to fix him! I mean, all I said was that sometimes getting your life back on track is a little harder for some than it is for others!”

“Is that _exactly _what you said?” Combeferre cut in.

“Well…” Enjolras faltered a little, “No, but…”

“What did you say, Enj?” he asked. Enjolras sighed and tried to remember exactly what he had said.

“I think it was something along the lines of ‘no one is beyond help’?”

Courfeyrac smacked himself in the forehead in despair.

“Jesus Christ, Enj,” he said, just exasperated as Combeferre had been for the past five minutes.

“What? Ferre, please explain to me why that was such a bad thing to say! I simply meant that he is _not_ broken and that he is _not_ stuck on the shitty path that this situation is trying to force him onto!”

Combeferre sighed and looked at Enjolras quizzically for a moment, try to work out whether he was genuinely confused or just being a moron because, seriously, he couldn’t be that stupid, could he?

Deciding that his best friend was indeed a moron, Combeferre settled on the best way to explain this pig-headedness to his best friend.

“Okay, Enj, I know that’s what you meant, but can you see how R maybe thought that you were treating him like a project?”

Enjolras still looked confused and Combeferre looked somewhat at a loss for how to explain further without hurting his feelings. Luckily for them both, Courfeyrac was there to rip the plaster off, so to speak.

“Enjolras,” he said, his tone resolute, “Grantaire thinks you are a golden god who would never date someone as fucked up as he is without some kind of ulterior motive.”

Enjolras was taken aback in a rather major way; it took him several moments to come up with a string of words that made any kind of sense to Courfeyrac’s harsh words.

“Bu-but…” he stammered, even more confused than he had been moments before, “Why would Grantaire _ever _think that he isn’t worthy of being with me? He’s amazing!”

A horrible wave of sadness washed over Enjolras in such an intense way that Combeferre and Courfeyrac could clearly see it, even over the grainy FaceTime footage.

“He’s amazing…” he repeated, his voice cracking and tears stinging in his eyes for the third time that night, “He’s amazing and now he—" He was cut off by an unstoppable sob coming from his throat. “Now he hates me.”

“Oh, Enj—” Courfeyrac started, feeling genuinely very guilty for putting his friend in the position to feel such pain and sadness. He would have apologised and offered to come over so they could hug it out but, before either he or Combeferre knew what was happening, Enjolras had stopped crying and was pulling himself out of the nest he had made for himself to wallow in on his bed.

“I have to apologise to him!” he exclaimed in lieu of an explanation. Courfeyrac tried to interject with some much-needed logic but he was cut off every single time.

“Enj, slow do—”

“No, Courf, I have to make this right!”

“But what if—”

“No.”

“Just liste—”

“No!”

“Will you please ju—”

“No, Co—”

“ENJOLRAS!” Combeferre practically bellowed, shocking both of his companions into silence. Being a naturally quieter individual, Combeferre _actually shouting_ isn’t something to be ignored. Ever. Enjolras stopped pulling his shoes onto the wrong feet and looked back at the phone where he had dropped it on his bed in his fervour to leave.

“Enjolras,” Combeferre repeated quieter but with the same severe tone that demanded compliance, “Grantaire does not, and never could, hate you. But, and I get that you really don’t want to hear this, he doesn’t want to see you right now. You feel guilty and I know that you want to make it right, but he is not exactly going to welcome seeing you with open arms after you hurt him.”

Enjolras didn’t say anything. He just stared at a dark green mess of wool scrunched up behind one of his pillows.

“At least give him until tomorrow before you go marching over there with a boombox and a badly fitting trench coat, okay?”

Much to his best friends’ surprise, Enjolras agreed easily. He even promised that he would leave give Grantaire some time to cool off without either of them having to coerce him into agreeing. 

And if Enjolras curled up on his bed, his face buried in the pillow next to the beanie Grantaire left behind, breathing in the faint, musty smell of cigarettes, turpentine, and rain then neither Combeferre or Courfeyrac would say a damn thing about it.

It only stuck Combeferre later, after they had hung up the phone and settled down to sleep, how much Enjolras must love Grantaire.

Once when they were kids, someone had mentioned the phrase ‘if you love somebody you’ll let them go’ and Enjolras had gone on an entire rant, arguing that if you truly loved something, you would love it enough to fight tooth and nail for it. Now, though, Enjolras had found someone he was willing to leave be, not for the sake of his own happiness, but for the sake of his love. Though in true Enjolras fashion, he was going to figure out a way to do both, he was sure of it, but the mere fact that Enjolras was willing to let him go, even temporarily, showed just how much he loved Grantaire. 

It is for this reason that Combeferre was so sure that everything would work out between them.

It had to.

Otherwise what hope was there for the rest of the world? 

***

Not so far away, Éponine was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating exactly how her life got to the point it was at. She did this for a few reasons – all to be revealed later – but for no reason more than the information just brought to light.

It had always been a thing in the Thénardier family that one does not ask questions. Especially not of their father.

Some may call that a dangerous lack of communication within the family unit.

Éponine called it survival.

It was for this reason, though, that neither she nor Gavroche knew the exact whereabouts of their parents since they left the country. Hell, they weren’t even sure that they’d actually _left _the country. The bastards could be in Coventry for all they knew.

Éponine was pretty sure they were in America, though, if receipts carelessly tossed into their bedroom bin were anything to go by. See, she had been doing some snooping in her parents’ absence – since she had no fear of retribution given that she found it pretty damn unlikely that they were ever going to come back – and had found a paper trail a mile long heavily implying that they were in America (St Louis to be exact).

_Good riddance_, she had thought the day they left. And, really, she was rid of them. Completely. This was reiterated to her every month they were gone by their response to her email asking them to send more money (Come on, you can’t blame her for needing to eat. It’s not like part-time cashiers at Tesco get paid enough to feed three hungry teenagers.). There was no response.

Nothing.

Radio silence for the two and a half months since they had left.

Nothing, that is, until that day.

That day, Éponine had received an email from her parents’ account completely out of the blue. Her first instinct had been to eagerly run down to the 24-hour corner shop with a cash point and check her bank account. Then the scepticism had crept in and she had actually read the email.

It read:

> Dear recipient,
> 
> This address has been deactivated by the user. You will not be able to send or receive anything from the user via this address from now on.
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> Mr Thénardier
> 
> via Tech Support Team A

When she was ten years old, Éponine had wondered when she would stop being disappointed by her parents.

Seven years later as she read that email and collapsed onto her bed, she realised she was still wondering, that she hadn’t stopped.

It struck her that she was completely cut off from the people who called themselves her parents. You could say ‘But, ah, Éponine! You still live in their house, don’t you?’ and to that, she would probably say ‘Who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?’ because, yes, it was _her _house.

Just when you thought the depth of depravity the Thénardier parents could reach couldn’t go any lower, Éponine had found the deed to their house. It was under her name. Now, Éponine didn’t know much about the property market in St Michel, but she knew enough to be aware that a house big enough for a family in close proximity to a school requires a pretty damn good credit score. She wasn’t even sure how they managed to convince the bank to let them take out a mortgage under the name of their, at the time, eleven-year-old daughter, but they had managed it.

Not only that, though, somehow – and Éponine didn’t want to know for the sake of deniability – they had paid off that same mortgage a year before they hopped a plane and fucked off to doom another country to their presence. So, now, not only did she have an entire house (as run down as it was) with the mortgage all paid off, but she had more money than she had thought, considering she didn’t have to pay it herself.

Éponine longed to share the information with Grantaire but, as per usual, he was off getting laid by Enjolras. She was happy for him, really, she was, but she missed her brother. He was so caught up in his relationship with blondylocks that he seemed to have no time for her, and that shit _hurt._

Consequently, to a certain degree, when Grantaire staggered through her bedroom door in a flurry of limbs and fury and a bottle of tequila, she was almost happy about it.

Almost.

She eyed the thankfully unopened bottle with distaste – it was the same look she had on her face when she saw clips from fox news – as though it had personally caused world hunger. She was determined not to let a drop of the stuff pass Grantaire’s lips. And not just because she knew she’d have to deal with the resulting hangover in the morning, either. Honestly, as mushy as it sounded, she was proud of Grantaire for cutting back with alcohol and she had the horrible feeling that, if he drank that evening, it would be back to square one and all of his work would be for nothing.

Never, ever say that Éponine isn’t a good friend.

“Can you believe Enjolras? I mean, who the _fuck_ does he think he is?” Grantaire was saying, opening the bottle as he spoke.

Without giving anything away, Éponine agreed and gestured for him to pass the bottle.

“If you’re going to whine about your love life to me, R, at least let me not be sober for it,” she said, making grabby motions for the bottle. Grantaire shrugged and handed it over, doubling down on the beginning of his rant.

“Really, though, he was completely out of line! I mean, he had the gall to say that I – and I quote – am “not beyond fixing”!” he made the quotation marks with his fingers, so entranced in his fury that he didn’t notice the way Éponine was shuffling towards the window with the still-full bottle, “I should have known that he wouldn’t go out with me for real,” he went on, sounding more bitter by the second, “Of course he wants to fix me! Look at me, Ponine! I’m a fucking project!” It was only then, as she stood by the open window, that he even questioned what she was doing.

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” she responded simply before launching the bottle out of the open window.

“What the fuck, Ponine?!” Grantaire screeched, rushing over to the window and looking down at the mess of broken glass and tequila on the patio below.

Looking back at her, his face turned wild and accusatory to match his tone.

“You’re just like him! You’re trying to fix me the same as him!” he went on accusing, throwing indictments at her as fast as they spawned in his brain, full of bile and bitterness and all completely ridiculous.

That’s it, she thought.

That.

Is.

It.

“Oh, _fuck_ _off_!” she yelled, stunning Grantaire into silence.

To be honest, she was more than a little shocked herself. She had never yelled at any of her friends like that let alone Grantaire. And, yet, she didn’t feel guilty. He was being a dick and he deserved to know it.

“Sorry?” he said after a few moments, taken aback completely.

“You heard me,” she spat, determined to hold her ground, “You’re being an asshole and you can fuck right off until you’re ready to stop being a drama queen and talk to me like a normal, _rational _human being!”

Grantaire was shocked into silence once again. This time, though, he visibly sobered from his rage and slouched over to the bed. He slumped over and buried his head in his hands, his shoulders beginning to shake and his breathing becoming erratic.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped between breathes, “I’m just so… angry!”

“I know,” Éponine sighed, some of her anger and frustration dissipating as she sat down beside Grantaire on the bed, “You’re dating an asshole.”

He leant his head on her shoulder and took a deep breath.

After a moment or two, he hummed. It could have been in agreement or in thought, she wasn’t sure, but, either way, she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond. All she knew was what she was going to say. And she knew it wasn’t what Grantaire wanted to hear.

“He’s an asshole,” she began, steeling herself for the emotional explosion to come, “But you should’ve let him finish what he was saying.”

“Ponine!” Grantaire exclaimed, appalled, “He told me that if I’d tried harder then maybe my life wouldn’t have turned out so shit!”

“Did he?” she shot back, “Or did _you_ misunderstand him because I know Enjolras and, yeah, he can be a real bitch sometimes but there’s no way in hell he’d be that… that _cruel_ intentionally and if you weren’t being such a stubborn, self-absorbed ass you would see that!”

She paused and let her shoulders sag. As guilty as she felt the moment the words left her mouth, it was as though a huge weight had lifted off her shoulders. To her relief though, Grantaire seemed more confused than he was offended.

“Okay,” he said, “I get that I’m stubborn but how am I self-absorbed?”

Éponine scoffed incredulously.

“How are you not!” she said, truly baffled by his utter density, "You’ve been so absorbed by your thing with Enjolras that you have barely noticed the rest of us!” She paused to glare at Grantaire piercingly. A look which, coming from Éponine, meant ‘shut your fucking mouth and listen to what I have to say.’ “I mean, on Saturday,” she continued, “I came home at 3 am, drunk out of my mind and fell asleep with all of my makeup on! You never used to let me do that. You would always make me take it off, even if you had to wake me up to do it.” She sounded genuinely saddened thinking about it and the guilt that filled Grantaire struck him at his very core. “But you just laid there,” she went on bitterly, “texting your boyfriend with a stupid smile on your face and you didn’t care what I did…”

She trailed off, her face equal parts sad and angry. Seeing her in such a state, Grantaire could only apologise.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No,” she agreed, her anger-clenched jaw softening a little, “you didn’t.”

A few moments of silence passed during which the atmosphere of the room became considerably lighter, Éponine’s gripe with him out in the open finally.

“I, uh, I’d like to know now,” Grantaire started all of a sudden, looking over to Éponine with a semi-awkward smile on his face. “If you even want to tell me, of course. Why you were drunk, I mean.”

Éponine couldn’t help her smile. She was only human, okay? It was just nice for her to have her best friend back, even with him still grumpy and sleep-deprived.

“I went to a party,” she began, noting the surprise on Grantaire’s face, “I know, crazy, right? I’m a party-girl now,” she paused to laugh at her own joke. “Mostly people I don’t know, you know how Parnasse’s parties are,” she went on. “I was just drinking cider at that point, nothing too strong, and I see Cosette crying in the corner. So I go over to see what’s wrong and turns out she had a fight with Marius and they _broke up_.” She emphasised the last words, a note of astonishment still evident in her voice.

“No—”

“Hush. She starts talking about it and before I know what’s happening she’s _kissing_ me!”

“What? Really?” he cried, disbelieving. The shocking part so far was not that Cosette kissed a girl – she was, after all, just as bisexual as he was – but that she was the kind of person to rebound that quickly. And at a party, no less!

“Not the craziest part!” she exclaimed, all of the animosity banished from the room and the two of them ready to joke together as they should. “Half an hour later, I’ve got Cosette to stop crying and… well… kissing and she’s gone off somewhere to drink and forget and it’s all dandy, and then I run into _Marius _and _he _starts crying and explains what happened. Turns out it was a huge misunderstanding and they shouldn’t’ve broken up but before I can tell him that _he _starts kissing me!”

Grantaire’s jaw dropped. How in the actual _fuck _had he missed this?!

“I know, right?” she said, an almost manic smile on her face as she told her story. “Anyway, an hour goes by and I see them _together._ They’re holding hands and being the same lovey-dovey couple that they always are, and they come up to me, thank me, apologise for making out with me—”

“Oh, Ponine—”

“And then,” she said, silencing Grantaire with a finger, “they both kiss me on the cheek!”

Grantaire wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. On one hand, Éponine had had a pretty massive crush of Marius not so long ago and having him kiss her and then immediately get back together with his wonderful, unhateable girlfriend must’ve sucked. But, on the other hand, Éponine didn’t seem all that sad about it. In fact, she seemed to find the entire thing pretty funny.

“That must’ve been weird,” he settled on saying given that it was the only thing he was sure about.

“It was,” she agreed, “I didn’t know what to do with those feelings!”

“And that’s when you got hammered?” he said, comfortable now that he was on more familiar ground: the land of drinking.

“That’s when I got hammered. I asked Parnasse for the strongest stuff he had and when that turned out to be moonshine I took the vodka.”

Grantaire grimaced at a memory of Montparnasse’s moonshine that he had clearly tried to repress. When he had moonshine, Grantaire tended to get rather, how do you say, _affectionate. _Bahorel called it his slutty drink. Éponine has a slutty drink too. But, of course, hers isn’t moonshine. It’s vodka.

Wait.

Vodka?

“Did you hook up with anyone?” he asked before gasping suddenly. “Did you have sex with Montparnasse?!”

If she’d had sex with Montparnasse, she would never hear the end of it. From either him or Grantaire. Hooking up with one’s ex – who also happens to be one’s best friend’s ex too – isn’t something one gets out of without being thoroughly reamed by one’s friends for.

“What? No! The worst thing I did was leave an embarrassing voicemail for Combeferre.”

Grantaire could barely suppress his laughter and raised his eyebrows at her suggestively.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” she said with no venom in her voice, “You’re not off the hook yet so you don’t get to make fun of my dumb crush.”

He held up his hands in surrender, but his smile didn’t fade away.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to hear that story sooner.” He was quiet, a sure sign that he meant his apology. Éponine wasn’t quite satisfied, though.

“Is that all?”

“No,” he acquiesced, “I’m sorry I’ve too self-absorbed to notice your bad skincare habits and the fact that you’ve been spiralling towards alcoholism which, I have to say, is usually my MO.”

“R…”

“Nope, sorry. That was a badly judged joked. I promise to pay more attention to you in future.” He paused momentarily before adding, “I’m also sorry for what I’m about to ask.”

“Oh god…” she wasn’t annoyed, though to anyone else her expression may make it look like that. Her tone was more akin to that of a long-suffering spouse having to deal with yet another hair-brained scheme of their partner’s.

“…because I know what I just promised…” he went on, “but, what should I do about Enjolras? I mean, I know he was being a dick, but it was probably a misunderstanding.”

“Like Marius and Cosette,” she supplied and, in doing so, showed her willingness to help with his and Enjolras’s _thing, _as she had so eloquently put it before.

“Yes! Like Marius and Cosette,” he agreed, “and, well, I don’t know, should I go and apologise?”

Éponine was a firm believer that tutting belonged to pissed off businessmen on the London underground and forty-year-old women named Karen with three kids who want to speak to the manager. In this case, though, she gave herself a pass.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, tutting at his complete and utter romantic incompetence, “I thought that was pretty clear given what I said earlier!”

Grantaire didn’t say anything for a few moments, thoroughly lost in thought.

“Okay,” he said after a while, as though he had decided something. “Bye.”

With that, he picked himself up, pulled on a pair of trainers that had been dumped next to the foot of the bed and headed towards the door.

“What? Where are you going?” she called after him as he was already halfway out of the door.

“To apologise!” he called back, sticking his head through the door, a wild and determined grin on his face.

Once he was gone, Éponine was left in his wake, still looking at the spot in the doorway he had disappeared from. She shook her head slightly, smiling at his ridiculousness.

“I meant tomorrow,” she said to no one in particular, “but go off I guess.” And, with that, she prepared for bed and spread herself over the covers like a starfish. No matter what she had said about missing him while he was gone – every single word had been true – and no matter how nice it was to have someone warm to hold on cold nights, she did enjoy having the entire bed to herself from time to time. And why shouldn’t she? It was _her _bed, after all.

***

¹When Enjolras is in a bad mood or even just speaking very, very passionately about something he tends to speak in a manner much more formal than you would ever catch your typical seventeen-year-old from St Michel speaking. None of Les Amis have worked out exactly why this happens, just that they don’t like it. In the words of Bahorel “I don’t know, dude, it just makes him sound like a stuck-up prick. And he isn’t stuck-up! Or a prick! Most of the time…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes, as I said at the beginning, this is only around half of what I wanted to say in this chapter but, as you may have noticed, I've extended the length of the fic to 22 chapters (originally it was 20) and I may extend it beyond that depending on how it goes. I just thought I'd point it out and apologise for not strictly answering the question I posed in the endnotes of the last chapter. Oops! 
> 
> Also, I should mention that there will be no more Éponine/Marius/Cosette as an OT3 (don't get me wrong, I love that ship!) as it isn't part of this story and, in this story at least, I wanted to focus on Éponine/Combeferre, but I couldn't resist having just a little in there!
> 
> Also also, happy bonfire night! I'm posting this on the fourth and so far this year there have been fireworks going off in my city since the first (Friday) so it seems like they're not letting up any day soon!
> 
> Also also also, little disclaimer, I know little to nothing about mortgages and house purchasing, so apologies if that bit was inaccurate.


	14. L'Amour Te Fait Stupide

Nearly two in the morning and he still hadn’t managed to get to sleep. Enjolras was beginning to despair that his Saturday would be spent in a caffeine-induced haze of fruitlessly staring at his textbooks and begging Grantaire to call. 

Needless to say, he didn’t have high expectations.

Having long since given up with just shutting his eyes and waiting for sleep to happen, he had resolved to stare at the ceiling with the dark green beanie held tight against his chest, trying with all his might not to think about how royally he screwed up.

It almost worked.

Perhaps it was the extreme emotions coursing through his veins, or maybe the lack of sleep, or possibly it was the incessant tapping of a tree branch against his little basement window, or maybe some horrifying combination of all three, but Enjolras thought he might actually be losing his mind. He could hear Grantaire’s voice. He was having auditory hallucinations, for god’s sake.

The sound of his boyf— Grantaire’s voice nearly sent him into another spiral of crying, but he forced himself not to. He wouldn’t cry more than four times in the span of one afternoon. He wouldn’t. He absolutely wouldn’t. He had to focus on something, _anything _else.

_The wind must really be picking up, _he thought as the tapping of the tree branch on the window turned into pounding.

Hang on.

A tree branch?

It occurred to Enjolras, lying on his bed, in his bedroom, the same bedroom he’d had since he was six years old, that that bedroom was in the basement.

There is no tree on planet earth that would stoop low enough to have one of its branches tap – or, rather, _pound_ – against his tiny basement window in such a regular pattern.

Grantaire’s muffled voice continued to echo through his mind as he sat up intending to investigate this ghostly branch.

The moment Enjolras’s eyes fixed on the window everything started to make more sense. Including his apparent waning sanity, which made him feel considerably better in that respect.

He ran – actually _ran _– up the stairs to the front door, his hand still clutching unconsciously at the material of Grantaire’s hat as he swung the door open, likely with more force than necessary but he couldn't care less about that just then.

“Granta—" “Apoll—” they both began at once, their pleading tones matching perfectly.

“You go first,” Grantaire insisted, but Enjolras shook his head.

“No, you come in and we can talk. It’s starting to rain again, and I’ve still got your hat.” Enjolras smiled shyly, a gesture Grantaire returned with no shortage of relief before he stepped over the threshold.

The relief Grantaire felt lasted no more than a couple of seconds before panic settled right back into the pit of his stomach. _What if he was just being nice by smiling at me,_ he thought, worried as they strolled into the living room where everything had gone oh, so wrong earlier.

Feeling like he would die if he didn’t say something imminently, Grantaire spoke first.

“Apollo, I am so sorry for not letting you explain what you meant earlier,” he implored, looking at Enjolras desperately. “It wasn’t fair and I was an asshole.” He looked down and swallowed dryly, preparing to say the most horrible thing he hoped he would ever have to say. “You don’t have to forgive me,” he paused as he willed his voice to keep going, “and if –“ he stopped again to clear his throat. His voice had given up momentarily. “If you want… we can b-break up. I’m dragging you down and I know that and it’s probably so selfish of me but I want to stay with you.”

Voice wavering, and cracking, he was barely holding it together. He tried his best to collect himself, clearing his throat once more, staring at the carpet to avoid the pity in his Apollo’s eyes and blinking away his tears as he realised that he had been wrong. Nothing he would ever have to say would be more difficult than what came next.

“But if you don’t want to be with me anymore, I understand. We can go our separate ways and never speak to each other again if that’s what you want. Just… _please _tell me now and get it over with because… I-I-I can’t…”

He had to stop. The panic at the pit of his stomach was rising up his throat like bile, choking him and cutting off his air supply. He crumpled to the floor inelegantly, only to be caught midway down. Leaning on Enjolras, he finally looked up at him, seeing shock and sadness rather than pity in his eyes and Grantaire wasn’t sure which was worse.

Neither spoke for the following minute.

The way Grantaire saw it, Enjolras was trying to formulate the least brutal way to break up with him. Still, he relished being able to lean against his boyfriend’s chest while he still could.

Enjolras, on the other hand, was still reeling from Grantaire showing up at his house in the middle of the night to make things right after their stupid, stupid fight and thus his brain was still about forty-five seconds behind the rest of the world. By the time he had finally caught up (plus about fifteen seconds extra to enjoy moving his fingers languidly through his boyfriend’s – yes, boyfriend, he was certain – messy and still slightly damp hair) Enjolras’s mouth sprang into action, the way it was wont to do around Grantaire.

“Oh, Grantaire…” he began, his voice slightly hoarse.

Grantaire prepared for the worst.

“I don’t want to break up!”

Okay, that hadn’t been what he was expecting.

“I can’t even _imagine_ wanting to be without you. I love you!”

“I’m sorry.” Grantaire wasn’t sure what compelled him to say that. Perhaps it was the fact that for the second time in barely three hours that he’d caused Enjolras such distress. Or maybe he just felt as though he should be sorry that he’d somehow swindled such a wonderful (if at times, dickish) man into loving him.

“No, please, no.” Enjolras shook his head vehemently. He was not having Grantaire apologise for a panic attack or anything else. No. “I’m the one who should be apologising. I am _so_ sorry for ever insinuating that you’re at fault for your current predicament.”

He nudged Grantaire’s chin upwards and looked at him with – if it was possible (Grantaire didn’t believe it was) – more passion and determination than he’d ever seen in his boyfriend’s eyes as he spoke about climate change and capitalism and homophobia.

“I didn’t mean it,” he insisted staring Grantaire right in the eyes and imploring him to believe him. “_I _was the asshole,” he went on, “I just want you to be happy and healthy and okay and it makes me so _angry_ that you’ve had to deal with all of this shit in your life!”

Taking a deep breath to calm the raging fire of anger welling up inside him, Enjolras leaned forward barely two inches until their foreheads were pressed together. When he spoke then, he spoke with such sincerity that the weight the words carried fell heavy in Grantaire’s heart. Tears threatened to spill again should he open his eyes and so just leant in Enjolras, with everything he had. He could do nothing else.

“You’re wonderful and you deserve all of the happiness in the world and the fact that you’re ever miserable is a travesty. I love you, Grantaire,” he punctuated the statement with a chaste, gentle kiss to his cheek¹, “and I’m sorry for being such a dick.”

He leant back on his heels; still supporting Grantaire – though he didn’t strictly need it anymore – but far enough away so as to look at him properly. Enjolras was determined to see Grantaire’s face. He _had _to be looking in case he smiled.

There are many things that Enjolras loves about Grantaire. How much he loves his friends and how fiercely he would protect every single one of them should it come to it. How, no matter how shallow Enjolras worried it might make him seem, broad his shoulders were and how strong he was despite his height. He loved the softness of his belly and thighs and how comforting he felt wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms late at night. How he excelled at so many things: art, acting, singing, dancing… he could play the piano _and _the guitar and, though Enjolras had never seen it in person, according to Bahorel and Feuilly he was one hell of a boxer too. His mind boggled every time he tried to list the many, many reasons he loved Grantaire.

His smile, though. Oh! His smile was always sat atop the list, grinning wildly, the tip of his tongue just visible between the teeth…

It was beautiful. It was _so _beautiful and Enjolras wasn’t going to miss a second of one if he smiled, if only for the terrible fear in his chest that he may never see that gorgeous grin again.

Of course, he did see it again. Quite quickly, actually.

The smile was amused in a subdued way, but amused nevertheless, and it caused a lovely warmth to flood Enjolras’s chest.

“You’re forgiven,” Grantaire said, as though it was hardly worth saying given how obvious it was to him. Then, however, the smiled lessened and took on a new dimension of bitter hopefulness that should have been contradictory by definition but seemed to suit Grantaire and his air of cynicism that he carried with him to meetings and the like. “Am I?” he asked, quietly, quickly rushing to his own defence. “You don’t have to forgiv—"

“You’re forgiven too.” Enjolras spoke without hesitation and it was like the clouds had parted with the way Grantaire’s lips broke out in a sunny smile.

“I love you,” he said, leaning over to Enjolras, his intentions clear.

“I love you too.” And Enjolras closed the gap between them.

Have you ever seen one of those movies where a character has increased healing for whatever reason and so, to prove it, we see wounds healing up before our very eyes? That time-lapsed image of a cut healing over to leave just a thin scar where it was moments before… that’s what that kiss felt like. Healing. Full of passion and yet not quite heated, every molecule of their bodies desperate to prove just how much love they had for each other. They were healed. Sure a scar was left behind; the fight had happened and there was no way to deny it. But, even if the wound wasn’t fully healed, at the very least it was better than it had been moments before and they both accepted that readily.

So engrossed in the kiss was Enjolras that it took several slow, stuttering seconds for him to react to Grantaire tapping insistently on his shoulder. So long, in fact, that Grantaire had to gently push him away before his brain got in gear.

“Wait.”

“What?” Enjolras hadn’t meant for his response to come out quite so frustrated. Luckily, Grantaire didn’t seem to be offended. Rather he found Enjolras’s frustration pretty amusing. It wasn’t quite an ego boost but it wasn’t far off.

“I have one more thing to apologise for,” the smile turning sheepish and bordering on grimace territory.

“What?” Enjolras repeated, this time more concerned than frustrated. What else could have possibly happened that warranted an apology? He tried not to assume the worst but, given where the bar had been set for misdeeds that day it was hard not to worry.

Grantaire tried to grimace good-naturedly, as though to say, ‘it’s not that bad, but, you know, oops!’

“I’m sorry for probably getting you in trouble with your parents,” he sounded genuinely sorry and the apologetic grin on his face would have made Enjolras’s chest flutter pleasantly had he not been so damn confused about what he had actually said.

“What do you mean?” His brows were furrowed, and his head inclined to one side slightly, looking not dissimilar to a confused puppy. The sight alone warmed Grantaire’s heart so much that he would have been happy to leave him in the dark until morning, just so he could continue seeing that face. But, not being quite the humungous asshole he wanted to be sometimes, he gave in. The just guy looked so fucking confused! He just _had_ to put him out of his misery. Not to do so was probably (or, at least, it should’ve been) a crime somewhere in the world.

“We argued pretty loudly,” he explained. God knows how the boy had got the grades he’d had given how dense he truly was at times. He was still confused, bless his heart, and didn’t seem to see Grantaire’s point. “We argued late at night… in the middle of the living room… loudly. There is no _way _they didn’t hear us!”

Enjolras’s mouth made a comical ‘o’ shape in sudden understanding.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said waving the problem away with one of his hands and leaning back against the seat of the sofa, “They’re not here. They’re on their annual trip to Milan for their anniversary and won’t be back until the end of next week.”

“You know,” Grantaire said, leaning back against the seat of the sofa next to him, his leg stretching out and resting on top of Enjolras’s, and grinning cheekily, “being the cliché rebellious teens in love that we are, this is the point in the 80s teen movie of our lives where we would descend into the throws of passion, our phenomenal lovemaking scored by Lionel Ritchie or George Michael or—"

“Okay.”

That stopped Grantaire in his tracks.

Enjolras wasn’t really sure what had made him say it. Sure, they’d talked about sex before, the first night they had shared a bed, in fact. At the time they’d agreed to wait. At the time, Enjolras hadn’t been ready, the thought of having sex – though he was aware that the concept of virginity was antiquated and based completely on misogyny – daunted him and he wanted to be able to go into his first time fully comfortable with himself and his partner. Since that conversation, though, they’d done sexual things. Grinding, handjobs, blowjobs, even some light rimming, they’d done all of that any number of times. And, yet, they’d never gone further because they’d agreed that they as a couple weren’t ready.

Enjolras was aware that Grantaire had been ready and willing from the beginning, but they had agreed to go at Enjolras’s pace.

And he didn’t know what it was, perhaps the reality check of him realising that Grantaire could leave him any day should he want to lit a metaphorical fire under his ass, but Enjolras was ready to pick up the pace.

“To what?” Grantaire asked, having only just wrapped his mind around what had happened, “George Michael or Lionel Ritchie?” Of course, he was trying to cover his awkwardness with jokes – so _Grantaire_. Enjolras had to try hard not to roll his eyes and instead settled for amusedly raising his eyebrows.

Sensing that Enjolras wasn’t joking, Grantaire continued.

“Or… The phenomenal lovemaking… thing…?”

Enjolras wasn’t embarrassed by sex. He wasn’t! And yet every single time he spoke about it, even in meetings, a blush managed to creep onto his cheeks. He blamed the patriarchy, Catholicism, and the Victorians. Thus, at the repetition of the phrase ‘phenomenal lovemaking’, his cheeks heated, and he cursed the three culprits individually and gave one collective mental ‘fuck you’ to society.

Acting on impulse (and the needs to hide his blush from Grantaire who was very clearly trying not to laugh at his awkwardness), Enjolras surged forwards and captured his lips once again. The almost squeak-like sound of surprise that escaped Grantaire, suddenly having a face-full of him, meant that Enjolras couldn’t help but smile into the kiss. Grantaire quickly acclimated, though, and was within a second kissing back with ferocity, pulling Enjolras by the backs of his thighs onto his lap. A second more and he was peppering open-mouthed kisses in a trail down Enjolras’s neck, an action that had the blonde gasping something entirely incoherent as he ghosted lazily over a certain point just below his ear.

Grantaire heard Enjolras mumble something again. A two-syllable word – or thereabouts – that almost certainly wasn’t his name. He pulled away and Enjolras sighed in a way that was a little bit frustrated, a little bit whiney and a lot hot.

“Bedroom,” he said more coherently. Never had Enjolras been more grateful for Grantaire’s upper-body strength as he was then. He suddenly found himself being lifted off the floor, with his legs still around his waist and carried rather hurriedly down the stairs to his room where the bed was waiting for them, unmade and ready to be messed even more. A concept hot in of itself.

They fell against the bed together in an inelegant flurry of flailing limbs and shrieks that quickly turned into laughter.

In the soft light of Enjolras’s bedside lamp, Grantaire thought the boy underneath him looked more radiant than he had possibly ever seen him. Yes, the fire that burned in his eyes as he spoke and rallied with passion was unquestionably beautiful, but Grantaire wasn’t sure there was anything prettier than this softer, more content side of his Apollo. In fact, no, he was certain. There could never be any person or any moment prettier than this one.

With gentle shadows cast over one side of Grantaire’s face, Enjolras was overcome with thoughts of how _hot _his boyfriend was. According to Combeferre, Grantaire’s scruffy-artist-one-cigarette-away-from-death look wasn’t appealing to everyone, but, by God, it worked for Enjolras and, had he not been on his back, he was sure his knees would have been shaking.

So, when he leaned down once more for another kiss, who was Enjolras to say no when Grantaire looked so gorgeous?

Enjolras obliged and kissed hard and passionate and full of a kind of desperation that hadn’t really been a part of their make-out sessions before and Grantaire didn’t complain.

Despite what was to come, Enjolras was very much still in his comfort zone with regards to their _activities. _As mentioned before, they had done far more than just kissing – ‘just kissing’ as though it didn’t make the both of them go week at the knees by itself – and without a second thought Enjolras had flipped them over and crawled in between Grantaire’s legs on his knees.

He would have liked to have been able to say that from there it was plain sailing. Alas, not quite.

The first hurdle came, as it always does, with fucking skinny jeans. Enjolras, having been at home and in bed for hours, was in pyjama bottoms and so was a mere downward pull away from being half-naked. Grantaire, on the other hand, was wearing the same probably-too-small, black skinny jeans that he had been wearing all day and, as much as Enjolras appreciated how great they made his ass look, they were a bugger to get off.

“Maybe if you pull harder?” Grantaire suggested thoroughly unhelpfully.

“Maybe if you had a flatter ass?” Enjolras shot back with a playful glare.

“Hey, I can’t help that I’m so bootylicious, Enjolras!”

Enjolras could only look at Grantaire and sigh.

“Just take your fucking trousers off so I can blow you, dumbass.”

Now, that caught his attention.

“Yes, _sir_!” And, with no shortage of determination, Grantaire’s jeans were tossed across the room, the two already too lost in each other to see where they landed.

Enjolras’s mouth was mere centimetres from Grantaire’s dick but, for some godforsaken reason, he stopped and looked up to see Grantaire almost dying in desperation for friction.

“You want this?” he asked, voice as calm as every other time he asked it whenever they did something like this. Consent was important and they both knew and appreciated the fact, but Grantaire didn’t quite appreciate it when he was seconds away from a blowjob.

A sound escaped his throat, somewhere between a whine and a groan, and Enjolras couldn’t help the small smirk that forced its way onto his face.

“Words, dear, I need words,” he prompted, purposefully letting his breath run hot onto Grantaire’s dick.

“Fucking tease,” Grantaire muttered with a gasp and Enjolras smirked once more.

“What was that, love?” He had heard perfectly well, but he wasn’t beyond making him suffer just a little longer. Grantaire was right. He _was _a tease.

“Fucking hell… Yes!” And Enjolras had his mouth on his in a heartbeat.

At that moment, Enjolras had never been more grateful for his absentee parents. The noises coming from Grantaire were practically _sinful _and the mere concept of him holding back those sounds for any reason was sacrilege to him.

This, this is what Enjolras was familiar with and Grantaire was so grateful for it. He knew just what to do. Kitten licking at the tip with all of the feigned innocence of the ‘virgin’ that he technically was, taking him into his mouth fully and sucking at the head and humming in a way that was both appreciative and utterly _obscene_, and travelling down to take more of Grantaire into his mouth, pressing his tongue flat against the thick vein on the underside and preparing to open his throat should it be necessary.

Spoiler: it was.

Enjolras vaguely remembered Courfeyrac making a joke about how "one day you'll appreciate not having a gag reflex!" when they were twelve. He’d said that it’d "come in handy... or rather _mouthy._". Of course, Enjolras had scoffed and kept his head held high, only breaking this calm, composed exterior when the words and implications properly sank in.

Of course, Courfeyrac had been right.

Then again, as much as Enjolras had come to appreciate his gag reflex – or lack thereof – he suspected Grantaire appreciated it so much more.

He groaned lecherously as Enjolras did something magical with the muscles in his throat, all thoughts flying out of his mind and being replaced with the image before him. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night. Well, Saturday morning, really. But the whole thing would be over rather quickly and anticlimactically – pun not quite unintentional – if Enjolras kept doing _that. _Despite Enjolras’s persistent ministrations – and he was _persistent _– Grantaire still somehow had the wherewithal to pull him off gently by his curls before everything just became _too much. _

Looking down at Enjolras and seeing his big, innocent blue eyes contrasted so harshly against the lewd movement of him licking up the strings of spit from his chin… it just wasn’t fair.

“Condom… lube!” he managed to choke out, his voice sounding rough in a way that was undeniably hot and just added onto the heat that was pooling in the pit of Enjolras’s stomach.

The condoms and lube were in a box inside the bottom drawer of Enjolras’s chest of drawers across the room from his bed. Comments had been made on multiple occasions by both Grantaire (obviously) and Combeferre (who had stumbled upon them while looking for a book and had just sighed and told him to warn him next time he was getting too close to the draw) saying that he should keep them in his bedside table. And he would! He really would! If his drawers weren’t so full of books, and pamphlets, and wristbands from marches and parades and protests from over the years.

So far, things had been moving at a steady pace, only going as fast as they wanted to, but, still, continually moving, never static. The short walk to and from the chest of drawers, however, stopped it and gave time for doubt to creep into his mind.

Not about himself! God, no, he wanted to have sex with Grantaire more than anything right at that moment. In fact, it was this sudden, intense desire to go all the way that put doubt into his head. What if Grantaire didn’t want to have sex tonight and had just said yes because Enjolras had wanted him to? What if he had changed his mind? What if…?

“You’re okay with this, right?” he asked, shuffling the bottle of lube and condom between his hands and fidgeting nervously.

Grantaire simply smiled fondly.

“Apollo, you have no _idea_ how okay with this I am.”

Enjolras joined him on the bed once again but kept himself to a friendly distance so as to not distract himself with how, _oh_ how gorgeous Grantaire looked.

“Just…” he began, sitting back on his haunches as he begged his hormone-addled brain to make actual, relevant words appear, “I want you to want to do this _because_ you want to do this, not because I want to.” He looked up at him from under his lashes and Grantaire would insist until his dying day that his breath caught in his throat, then, with how overcome by his boyfriend’s beauty he was.

“Enjolras I have wanted this for so long.” The words came out quickly, almost garbled, but the reassurance was undeniably there. “My first sex dream,” he went on pausing to think briefly, “Well, no, my first sex dream was about Gemma Arterton on a motorcycle... but my first sex dream about a _guy_ was about you!”

Well, that spawned just one more problem for Enjolras.

“What if I can’t live up to the dream-me?” he asked in a quiet voice. Grantaire could have sworn a little piece of his heart broke off hearing how small Enjolras’s voice was and how unsure of himself he clearly felt. Swallowing all of the declarations of love that he knew weren’t what Enjolras needed to hear, Grantaire thought, choosing his words carefully before speaking.

“Dream-you was good,” he said, lifting Enjolras’s face by the chin to look him in the eye, “but I was twelve and questioning my sexuality and I had no idea what to do with all of my emotions and it was strange and abstract and…” he paused and took a breath, looking Enjolras in the eyes seriously as he spoke again. “I would take real-you and all of the bad sex we could possibly even have over dream-you, gay-panics, and sticky sheets.”

How could a person be so wonderful? Enjolras wasn’t sure. If someone had asked him a year before whether the concept of perfection was real he would have made a twenty-minute speech on how not real it was. But, at that moment, if someone had asked him to name a single flaw that Grantaire had, he wouldn’t have been able to name a single thing. No doubt he would be able to jibe his boyfriend playfully about his terrible breath and grumpiness in the morning, but, just then, he couldn’t think of one thing.

“And, I suppose,” he said, leaning closer to Grantaire with newfound confidence, “if it doesn’t go very well, we could just try again…”

Grantaire leaned ever closer.

“Now you’re getting it,” he said so close that Enjolras could feel his breath as he spoke.

The double entendre, whilst completely unintentional and unnoticed by Grantaire, did not slip under Enjolras’s radar and a small smirk quirked at the corner of his lips.

“Oh, am I?” he asked, cheeky. Grantaire huffed a small spell of laughter, the two of them so close together that their lips were brushing every other second.

“I’ve had a bad influence on you.”

“You love it,” Enjolras fired back quickly, following the micromovements of Grantaire’s lips with his own mere millimetres away.

“So much,” he acquiesced and gave in, attacking Enjolras’s lips again.

Before long, Enjolras was leaning against all of his pillows, legs spread with an eager Grantaire with a lecherous grin between them. Grantaire lubed up his fingers, never taking his eyes of Enjolras, who blushed a pretty shade of scarlet as his dick twitched interestedly.

“Nervous?” he asked, fully aware of what Enjolras’s answer would be, no matter how he was anticipating it. Enjolras knew he knew, too, and thus scowled a little petulantly, nodding nevertheless.

“Just think about how good it felt last time,” he continued and Enjolras had to bite his tongue to refrain from calling him a bastard, “It must’ve been good given how loud you were! You know,” he went on, smirking, “I was worried your neighbours would call the police.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but laugh then at the thought of the old people who lived in his cul de sac being so scandalised. He found the image so funny, in fact, that he didn’t notice Grantaire leaning down ever so slowly until he was teasing at his hole with one of his fingers. He gasped once as he was entered, twice when he reached the second knuckle and then a third time when Grantaire’s finger was fully inside him, moving and searching and searching and—Oh! He found what he was searching for and a beautiful cry came from somewhere inside Enjolras’s chest.

“More!” he gasped, his back arching as he leaned further back into the mess of pillows and cushions behind him.

“You sure?” Grantaire teased him by barely scraping by his prostate once more and Enjolras should have known that he would have his revenge.

“Yes!” he said with as much indignance as he could muster when his body felt as though it was about to implode every single time Grantaire crooked his finger the right way.

Two fingers was more… well, it was _more. _It was better and exactly what he needed. Or, at least, it was for about two minutes before he needed more once again. He briefly wondered whether he could get addicted to this feeling before another finger pushed in and his vision went white.

Grantaire scissored his three fingers, stretching and purposefully, maddeningly brushing his prostate every other couple of seconds.

By now, Enjolras’s cock was red and leaking against his stomach and all he wanted was more, more, more.

“Please,” he choked out and thank god Grantaire understood what he meant from that because the three fingers in his ass were making vocal skills very difficult indeed.

Though he was grateful to have his voice back, Enjolras still whined at the loss of the fingers when Grantaire pulled them out a second later. He was consoled only by the thought that they would soon be replaced by a dick.

Except… they weren’t.

Grantaire had stalled, it seemed, the head of his cock resting against Enjolras’s entrance.

When he opened his eyes, though he had no specific memory of closing them, Enjolras was dismayed to find a cocky smirk on Grantaire lips. Clearly, he’d had a mischievous idea and Enjolras just wanted him to get on with it.

Of all of the times people had told him to get fucked, Enjolras had thought he was finally going to do it and, yet, Grantaire had stopped to stare at him with an undeniably cheeky grin on his face.

“You want this?” Grantaire asked, repeating Enjolras’s words from earlier in a frustratingly teasing tone.

Enjolras groaned and tried to push his ass down onto Grantaire dick. Predictably, it didn’t work.

“Words, dear Apollo, I need words,” he prompted as he leant across Enjolras’s chest to nip and kiss at some of the freckles on his collarbones. 

“For god’s sake!” he exclaimed, pulling him up insistently by the hair to look at him in the face. If the look that he gave Grantaire said ‘for fuck's sake, please don’t make me say it’ then his response simply said, ‘go on, do it’. Enjolras groaned once again, the sound trailing off into a broken moan once Grantaire nipped at _that _place on his neck.

“Fuck me!” he said finally, having lost the last of his inhibitions to impatience. 

“Finally!” he might’ve heard Grantaire say, but he couldn’t be sure because suddenly his mind went blank and he pushed inside.

Grantaire was inside him and everything stretched in the most delicious way possible and Enjolras regretted missing out of what could have been months of _this _for the sake of a social construct.

He would have continued to bitch mentally about virginity for an age, but then Grantaire began to move and all coherent thought flew out of the window in a series of pants and whines and whimpers that Enjolras couldn’t quite believe had come from him.

Grantaire, overcome with sensation himself, moved at a practically glacial pace until Enjolras, the beautiful and usually so controlled Enjolras, was keening and pushing back and begging for more, more, more and faster, faster, faster.

Grantaire obliged him in a heartbeat.

Pants and moans and groans filled the room and if Grantaire hadn’t been distracted so completely by the tight heat of Enjolras he would have felt genuinely sorry for his poor neighbours.

“Gran-ta-air-aire!” Enjolras called as he was pounded into, his words broken up by the force of Grantaire’s thrusts and desperately alternating between fisting at the sheets and scraping Grantaire’s back, not sure at all what to do with his hands. With his cock trapped against their stomachs, being rubbed every time one of them moved their body, things were beginning to build up behind Enjolras’s eyes.

“Taire!” he called again, now only able to manage the last syllable, finally understanding what people meant when they talked about having their brains fucked out of them, “Taire, this is going to be a short ride!”

“Oh, thank god!” Grantaire replied, laughing lightly, “It has been a while for me and it’s not going to last much longer!”

Enjolras managed a laugh too, but, after one particularly hard thrust – he was sure Grantaire did it on purpose – it became a fully-fledged moan and he could feel his peak coming closer and closer by the second.

“R—Taire! I’m gonna…” he trailed off as wave after wave of euphoria hit and he let out a noise that sounded somewhere between a high-pitched whine and Grantaire’s name – his full first name, otherwise neither of them would have been able to tell.

Grantaire sped up, chasing his own end and ignoring the uncomfortable stickiness of their stomachs as they rubbed together. Whines and hisses escaped Enjolras’s throat, so oversensitive that it bordered on overstimulation and black spots swam in his vision.

“Gonna come,” Grantaire hissed, still pounding into the tight heat, “You want me to come in you? So hot… Would you like that, Apollo?”

Enjolras’s jaw dropped. Grantaire was dirty talking him. Oh my god. And he liked it! It was so hot! So hot, in fact, that had he not come so recently, he would have been hard again in an instant. As it was, Enjolras could only keen and gasp out a broken “Yes!”

And Grantaire came.

Of course, he was wearing a condom – if for the sake of ease of clean-up if nothing else – and thus Enjolras had expected not to feel anything, but he did! It felt… well, he couldn’t think of a better way to describe it than _wonderful. Utterly and completely wonderful._

To both of their dismay, Grantaire had to pull out sooner or later – and, once again for the sake of clean-up, he chose sooner – and the whine of protest that Enjolras let out summed up just how they both felt about _that_ irritating truth.

Rolling off Enjolras, Grantaire couldn’t help but look down at their chests and sigh.

“Do you have any baby wipes?”

“Chest of drawers,” Enjolras replied, his voice raspy and rough from overuse and himself too spent to understand or question the sudden need for baby wipes. Or, for that matter, too spent to understand why Grantaire was chuckling all of a sudden, his laugh almost as raspy and Enjolras’s voice.

“You have _got _to start putting things in your bedside table!”

The baby wipes were retrieved, implemented and discarded as Grantaire climbed back into the bed and pulled the duvet over them. After all, it was February and sex can only keep you warm for so long.

Twenty minutes went by before either one of them spoke after that. They were too busy basking in the afterglow and enjoying being so close to each other that no words seemed necessary until one of them had something specific to say. Of course, it would be Enjolras who thought of something first.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “If you were to have asked me two hours ago how this night was going to go, I definitely wouldn’t have said this.” He chuckled light-heartedly.

“I’m still sorry about that,” he replied with a slightly nervous smile.

“So am I,” Enjolras confessed, “but no more of that. It’s done with.”

He held out his hand with a smile and Grantaire shook it jokingly-though-slightly-seriously and it was in the past. Officially, as it were.

“Ugh,” Grantaire rubbed his eyes in a combination of exhaustion and frustration with his past self for having his head so far up his ass. “I can’t believe how stupid we were for letting that get so out of hand.”

Seeing as they had already given into two clichés at least that day – argument followed by a teary reunion and then sex, and teens having sex while alone in the house – Enjolras saw no problems with giving into one more.

“Love makes you stupid,” he said.

“Uh, I think you’ll find love makes _you _stupid,” Grantaire shot back, laughing before gasping dramatically. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed, “I _am_ stupid!”

“What’s wrong?” Enjolras was ready to spring into action but Grantaire soothed him with a comforting hand on the cheek and an amused laugh.

“Nothing,” he reassured him, stroking the side of his head gently, his fingers scraping his scalp lazily in the most comforting way. “I just forgot to tell you something,” his tone was soft to match the atmosphere of the room but it was undoubtedly excited nonetheless. “I got the part! In the play!”

“Grantaire! I’m so proud of you!” Suddenly Grantaire was being tackled by an _extremely _proud Enjolras who was pressing chaste kissed to every inch of his face. “I’ve always said you can do anything you put your mind to!” he went on, pressing a slower, more meaningful kiss to one of his cheeks. “You’re so talented,” another slow kiss to his other cheek and his chest was fluttering, “and gorgeous,” another, this one on his neck, and his heart was beginning to pound, “and strong,” another, on the opposite side of his neck, and he was struggling to hold back a groan, “and sexy,” this kiss was fast-paced and hard and so full of passion and right on his still-swollen lips. They continued to kiss for ten minutes until Enjolras broke away and rasped hotly in Grantaire’s ear, “Wanna go again?”

Grantaire, as turned on as he was beginning to feel once more, couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Look who's all of a sudden a horny teenager! I knew your libido had to be in there somewhere!” he exclaimed and, upon seeing Enjolras’s incredulous look, continued, “Shh, I know, you could have been ace or something, it was a joke and I’m frankly too tired to debate with you whether that joke was in good taste _and _have a second round, so,” he paused, eyeing Enjolras up and down hungrily, “which will it be?”

Obviously, Enjolras dove back in to kiss him again and his choice was made. Let this be the day, people, 6th February, the day Enjolras chose Grantaire over Debate. Surely an event for the history books.

If the second round was even better than the first, then no one – except perhaps Enjolras’s poor neighbours – but them would know to tell a soul. And, if perhaps, the two spent Saturday doing nothing but sleeping and sharing lazy kisses over pancakes made by Grantaire rather that do their work then no one knew and they could do their work on Sunday.

***

¹Enjolras had meant to press this gentle kiss to Grantaire lips but rather missed in his fervour to affirm his love. As reasons for fucking up a kiss go, that one isn’t too bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is a little later than usual! It's just that it's my first time writing smut and it's nearly 7k so it was always going to take a little longer than the others! Technically, though, given that I am posting it at 23:59 I'm still on my schedule and no one can take that away from me!


	15. Happy ‘Deplorable-Day-Used-By-Super-Corporations-To-Make-A-Profit-From-A-Holiday-That-Otherwise-Doesn’t-Matter’ Day!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's Day with Les Amis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick forewarning that this chapter focuses mainly on Enjolras and Grantaire and not on any of the other ships included. Of course, the others are mentioned, but the focus of this chapter is to show them happy and in love and I couldn't write anything less than sugary sweet this week because of various reasons.
> 
> Enjoy!

Friday 14th February started as all of the days had done so far that February: miserable, with a wind that made 9ºc feel closer to -9ºc, and enough of a drizzle to dash all hopes that any snow that fell would stick before you’d even walked out the door. Such weather made it almost impossible for Grantaire to get out of bed and even more so for either him, Gavroche, or Éponine to leave the relative warmth – relative being the operative word there – of the house.

Nevertheless, it being a weekday, they had to go. Well, Gavroche did. Éponine and Grantaire’s maths teacher was off sick and so they were both free until after morning break. Still, in solidarity for their little brother’s struggles, they left the house too.

Then they went back because Gavroche decided he wanted that coat after all and that he could stand to be five minutes late for the sake of not getting hypothermia.

So, they left the house again and this time, when Gavroche remembered his pencil case lying on the table, Éponine just fished a pen out of her pocket and told him to make do with that.

Once Gavroche had been safely deposited in school under the watchful eye of the sullen teacher on duty, the two remaining made their way up the hill to the Upper School.

“So what are you planning on doing with Enjolras for Valentine's day?” Éponine asked, suddenly breaking their companionable silence as they trudged toward school.

“Why do you care?” Grantaire asked, genuinely confused in her sudden interest in his love life. “You’ve never been remotely interested in my relationships before.”

She scoffed incredulously and kicked at a stone on the pavement.

“Well, now I am,” she said childishly. “Besides, this is the first time you’ve had a relationship last longer than two weeks. Sue me. I’m curious as to how neither of you has screwed it up yet.” She was lying. Éponine was a good liar but not so good that she could fool Grantaire 100% of the time. 75% maybe. It seemed that this particular occasion belonged to the other 25%.

Grantaire huffed out a laugh, silently cursing the hill for being so long.

“You’re living vicariously through me, aren’t you?”

“Obviously.” She wasn’t ashamed. No, not ashamed, just slightly embarrassed to admit that maybe, perhaps, a stupid, lovey-dovey relationship like Enjolras and R’s could be something she wanted. Despite, or perhaps because of, her awkwardness around the topic, she forged ahead. Both with regards to her interrogation and the hill. “Now, _what are you doing for Valentine's day_?”

Grantaire sighed, knowing judgement was to come.

“Same thing I’ve done every year.”

“Why?” Here came the judgment. “This is the first year you don’t have to creepily show your affections anonymously! You can own up to your creeping!” she exclaimed.

“Look, I love him, I really do, but, on Valentine's day, he tends to be…” he trailed off looking for a kinder word than the one in his head. He found none. “Well… a dick. And I don’t want to hand him a rose only to have to suffer through a lecture about the capitalist usurpation of an otherwise completely pointless holiday. I’d much rather just let him think he had a secret admirer. The system’s worked for going on seven years now; it’d be a shame to give up, really.”

“Hmmm,” she thought for a moment, remembering every single rant of Enjolras’s about capitalism. _Jesus, that guy has a serious thing about capitalism, _she thought. And, yes, she was bitter about it too, but not quite to the extent that Enjolras did, she hoped. “Yeah,” she agreed finally, “I guess you should just slip it into his bag. I don’t want to have to hear that either.”

***

Sometimes Grantaire cursed the fact that he only shared one class with Enjolras. Usually, it was for the obvious reason that he wanted to spend time with his boyfriend, but this was not one of those times.

Turns out, discretely slipping a red rose into someone’s bag is a lot more difficult when said person doesn’t put their fucking bag down out of lessons ALL DAY. In the end, Grantaire didn’t manage to get the rose in there until right at the end of their economics class, at which point it was a bona fide miracle that the petals hadn’t all fallen away along with Grantaire’s patience.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a _miracle _per sae given that the rose itself was sitting quite comfortably at the bottom of Enjolras’s bag inside one of Gavroche’s old lunch boxes from his Transformers phase. That may have not been a miracle, but it definitely _was _a miracle that Grantaire had been able to find the fucking Tupperware that morning, without his coffee – they had run out and Éponine flat out refused to enable his caffeine addiction any more by going and getting some from the corner shop – no less, in the mess of plastic that was the Thénardier’s Tupperware draw.

“Hey, R?” Gavroche broke him away from his Tupperware-based thoughts and he suddenly realised he’d managed to walk all of the way to the meeting room on autopilot, following Enjolras on instinct as he rushed to the room, no doubt to prepare his statistics for the meeting. “Why is Parnasse lurking around the drama department?” he asked as he gestured his head behind him, towards the door that led to the rest of the school.

Éponine looked over to the two from where she was mid-conversation with Combeferre, raising her eyebrow at Grantaire. She hadn’t noticed Montparnasse down in the drama department – the department she’d just had to walk through – and she needed an explanation for why he was in her school, let alone why he was lurking just out of her sight.

“Oh, our Jeremy is having surgery like two weeks before opening night and the directors couldn’t find a replacement, so I suggested him,” he explained, leaning back on his chair.

Éponine relaxed a little, the explanation seemed perfectly innocent and she didn’t need to worry about Parnasse doing something unbelievably stupid because he had theatre nerds watching him 24/7.

“Fair enough.” Gavroche seemed to agree and went back to staring at his phone, his interest in the topic waning.

“Wait,” Combeferre cut in having overheard their rather loud conversation¹, “Is that allowed? For him to be in the musical, I mean. It’s just, he doesn’t go here.”

“She doesn’t even go here!” Courfeyrac piped up from the back, having heard only Combeferre’s portion of the conversation and seizing the opportunity to make a _Mean Girls _reference. Everyone laughed: that is the power of the _Mean Girls _reference.

“Honestly,” Grantaire went on once the laughter had died down, “I don’t think either of the directors cares? They just seemed happy to have someone with experience of the role.”

Jehan and Courfeyrac nodded in agreement, remembering the barely concealed panic on both Dahlia and Mademoiselle Favourite’s faces as it became apparent that no one at the school was both prepared and good enough to take on the role.

“Wait, who are we talking about?” Enjolras asked, head rising from where he had been hunched over his copious notes.

“Montparnasse. He’s the new lead in the musical!” Jehan was rather excited about the whole affair, really. They’d seen Montparnasse on stage before and it was… quite the sight to behold (not to mention what had happened after the show and back at his place). Of course, they’d spoken to Courfeyrac about their previous dalliance with the guy and, much to the situation’s apparent hilarity, Courfeyrac had admitted that he, too, had slept with Montparnasse and had consequently agreed that no jealously was to be felt.

Enjolras hadn’t got the memo apparently.

“Montparnasse?” he asked, doing terribly to disguise his reluctantly blooming jealousy, “The one with the hair and the cheekbones?”

“That’s the one,” Grantaire confirmed, amused.

“Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, co—"

“Jealousy is an ugly emotion, Apollo,” Grantaire cut him off unequivocally, smirking a little as an evil idea popped into his head. “Besides…” he said leaning forward to whisper something absolutely filthy into Enjolras’s ear.

The rest of Les Amis didn’t want to know what Grantaire said. Gavroche was a little curious, but, even so, he didn’t really _want _to know.

All any of them really knew was that one minute, Grantaire was whispering something to Enjolras, making Enjolras blush considerably, and the next they were furiously making out, leaning against the poor teacher’s desk at the front of the room.

“Um, guys?” Combeferre asked, trying (unsuccessfully) to get their attention. “Oi!” he shouted suddenly. Enjolras pulled away immediately, though not unreluctantly, and apologised to Combeferre, Grantaire following suit. There was never a truer statement than 'Combeferre alone makes up at least 50% of the group’s impulse control', if only for the sake of avoiding making him angry. They weren’t scared of him by any means, but to make Combeferre angry is to release the Hulk if the hulk were just regular-sized Bruce Banner glaring at you in a way that somehow made you, your mother, and your entire extended family feel guilty.

“We should get on with the meeting,” he prompted Enjolras, sitting down at his place, everyone quickly following after him, save Enjolras who loitered at the front completely at a loss for how to begin.

“Right, uh, yes, um…”

“Period poverty?” Combeferre prompted and Enjolras was eternally grateful.

“Period poverty! Right!”

***

The meeting wrapped up a little early that day. There were Valentine's reservations to be met and movies to be caught and takeaways that would be ready to be picked up in a matter of minutes and Combeferre wasn’t just going to let his spring rolls go soggy now, was he? Even if it meant cutting one of Enjolras’s many rants short. In their dedication to the romantic holiday, neither Cosette or Marius had shown up, each sending a paragraph to the group chat with their thoughts on period poverty and a ‘good luck’ for those in relationships on this most joyous day. Everyone who had shown up filed out of the room in dribs and drabs, Jehan and Courfeyrac to be the first to run out, excited for their first Valentines dinner together, followed by Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta wandering unrushed in the general direction of the cinema and finally by Combeferre, Bahorel, Éponine, Gavroche and Feuilly who had a movie night planned at Bahorel’s and had to go and pick up their takeaway feast on the way home.

That left just Grantaire and Enjolras together to pack up.

Well, _Enjolras_ was packing up. Grantaire had decided that his time was better spent watching Enjolras tidy away his hoard of statistic sheets. It wasn’t a bad decision, really. Especially given that he had just knocked his pile of sheets onto the floor and was wearing _very _tight jeans indeed. Not before making a mental note to paint that _fantastic _arse someday, Grantaire sighed and got up to help. What? He’s not a monster.

“You alright?” he asked Enjolras who had seemed more stressed than usual all afternoon.

“Yeah. Just…” he floundered searching for the right words to say what he wanted to say so that he didn’t sound like a massive dick. “We barely got anything done today and this is an area where we can make real change! We could force the school board to provide sanitary products! We could raise money for Dahlia to go on a training course to be able to counsel students regarding sexual health and healthy relationships! We could do so much good but everyone would rather spend their time eating Chinese food and watching stupid rom coms than make a difference!” Enjolras ended his rant with red flushed cheeks and hands flying about wildly.

Grantaire sighed.

“Look, Apollo, it’s Valentines Day. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you but it does to the others, so just let them be happy and bunk off from doing anything meaningful just for one night so they can be dumb teenagers for once, okay?”

Enjolras weighed up the options in his head, scrunching his nose as he thought. Grantaire absently thought the scene was rather adorable despite the bitchy mood the subject of his affections seemed to be in.

“You’re right,” he sighed, frowning lightly as though admitting Grantaire was right on this kind of this put a bad taste in his mouth. For all the arguing they had done over the months in that room, it did seem possible. Some kind of horrible, backwards Pavlovian response, or something. “Just let me pack my bag and then we can go. My parents aren’t back until Sunday…” he trailed off but his meaning was clear none the less.

In his haste to gather his stuff together and get Enjolras in bed, Grantaire had completely forgotten about the rose lying at the bottom of Enjolras’s bag. Well, that was, until the man himself came stomping over with a Tupperware in hand.

“Grantaire, can you believe this?” he said shrilly, as though the rose had personally offended him. “Someone has put a rose in my bag knowing full well that we’re dating! Now, I’m all for persistence, but that’s just bad manners!”

Grantaire couldn’t help but laugh, baffling Enjolras rather extremely.

“Apollo, darling, light of my life, you are so smart and you know I love that big, sexy brain of yours,” he began, strolling around the table to stand in front of Enjolras and take his hands in his own, “but _fuck _you are dumb sometimes!”

He was laughing again. Grantaire was laughing again and Enjolras seemed to have missed the joke entirely. Whatever the joke was, it must’ve been positively hilarious for his laughter to be coming out in little wheezes the way it was.

What did he even mean? How was he dumb? And why didn’t he seem even a little bit surpr— Oh. That made more sense.

“It was you,” he said simply as the last of Grantaire’s laughter died down.

He smiled sheepishly.

“Guilty as charged.”

Enjolras sighed and looked at the flower with an expression just short of being mournful. 

“Look,” he began, “I appreciate the gesture, but you know how I feel about—"

“Nope, stop. I have been doing this for years, Apollo, and I’m not going to stop now just because you actually know it’s me.”

“But—"

“And don’t you _dare_ accuse me of supporting over-commercialisation of the holiday because I picked this flower myself on my walk to school this morning just as I have done every year since year seven,” he gave him a pointed glare and Enjolras immediately felt guilty for assuming Grantaire wouldn’t have properly considered his actions. Of course, he had. He was amazing. “The only downside is that I couldn’t fit more into the Tupperware,” Grantaire went on but he wasn’t listening.

A dopey smile had spread across Enjolras’s face and Grantaire didn’t know whether to smile back or be very, very afraid that he had lost his grip on reality entirely.

“Have I told you how perfect you are today?” he said suddenly, once Grantaire had trailed off.

“Hmm…” he said, quickly falling back into the effortless banter they shared and mocking thought with an easy grin on his face. “No, I don’t believe you have.”

One second they were an arm’s length away and bantering with lazy grins and the next Enjolras had grabbed him by the collar and tugged him so close that they were practically nose to nose.

“You are perfect and brilliant and gorgeous,” he said simply, as though it were the most obvious thing to him and pressed forward.

To Grantaire, it didn’t feel like an overstatement to say that he had the living daylights kissed out of him. All too soon, though, Enjolras was pulling away and, no matter how reluctant he looked to be doing so, Grantaire still groaned in frustration, trying his damnedest to recapture his lips.

Enjolras shook his head, though.

“I think we should probably go back to mine now before the cleaners get here and find us making out on the desk,” he laughed, remembering the way Combeferre had had to shout earlier to get their attention off each other long enough for them to realise that they were a second away from indecent exposure. Grantaire smiled, too, happy to see Enjolras enjoying their first Valentines as a couple.

“Sounds like a plan!” he said as he picked his bag and coat up from the floor. “Lead the way, Apollo!”

And it was a very good plan. Very good indeed. Especially considering that with Enjolras’s tight jeans and Grantaire’s shamelessly wandering gaze, following him was a _particularly _enjoyable experience. Oh yeah. It was going to be a _good_ night.

***

¹Most conversations to happen in the naturally occurring bubble of chaos before every meeting were rather loud, to be fair to Gavroche and Grantaire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, this chapter is likely the shortest chapter that will be in this fic and I am genuinely sorry about that, but this week has kind of been less than brilliant for me and I just needed to write something short and sweet. I hope you understand. Also, apologies for any glaring errors as I wrote the last 200 words or so and edited this chapter whilst recovering from a migraine so my brain isn't really working properly!


	16. Shit Hits The Fan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was all going a little too well, wasn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: (VERY) BRIEF MENTION OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, REFERENCES TO ABUSE, ANXIETY, BLOOD, INJURY.

Montparnasse prided himself on being a loyal if occasionally unreliable friend. But, once in a blue moon, even the most loyal people slip up. Today the moon was blue – or it should be were it not four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon – and Montparnasse had slipped up.

Well, perhaps ‘slipped up’ is not an entirely appropriate way of describing it. ‘Had the truth beaten out of him’ is certainly more apt.

The sad thing was really, other than the obvious, he’d been having a rather lovely afternoon procrastinating doing his chemistry essay. The sun was shining for once, the newlyweds next door had finally ceased their relentlessly loud shagging, and he had even managed to find time between doing absolutely nothing and the rest of the nothing that he still had to do to practice his lines for the musical. It had been a good day. Of course, that was all before he had answered the door to find his least favourite neighbour seething in inexplicable fury.

From there, Montparnasse’s day had worsened considerably.

When asked about it later, he refused to go into details about what exactly had happened after he answered the door. He figured it was pretty easy to work out how he went from having his friend’s secret locked up tight to an only-just-not-broken nose, three bruised ribs and a bitter taste in his mouth where the secret had come pouring out from. Then, Grantaire’s father had gone careening away in his car and Montparnasse had been left with a bloody nose and aching stomach sitting on the pavement and watching the space where he had just disappeared.

A cigarette steadied the shake in his hands but made his nose sear in pain with every inhale as he waited. It seemed like a fair trade at the time. What was he waiting for? You may ask. He was waiting for Grantaire to answer his fucking phone.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up!” he muttered when it rang out for the third time.

It took Montparnasse dialling yet again, but, finally, the other boy picked up the phone.

***

It had been a good day for Grantaire. Not just because he had an Enjolras in his lap, grinding down periodically and making the prettiest noises – though that certainly helped. Even though the low window of Enjolras’s bedroom, the late afternoon sunlight was streaming into the room and bathed them both in the prettiest, most golden light you ever did see.

They were so tranquil with each other that not even the incessant buzzing vibrations of Grantaire’s phone coming from the back pocket of his partially unbuttoned jeans could startle either of them more than eliciting a single eyebrow raise from Enjolras.

“Shouldn’t… you… answer that?” he said between kisses.

To say that the grin Grantaire shot him then was wild would be an understatement. It was feral and mischievous and the only warning that Enjolras got before he was being picked up – Grantaire’s hands still on his ass – and tossed into the pillows at the head of the bed. His squeak of surprise was muffled almost immediately by Grantaire’s mouth joining his again.

The ringing stopped after a minute but, no sooner had it stopped, it started once again.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras gasped tearing himself away from his boyfriend’s eager lips, “Maybe you should get that.”

“Nuh-uh. Your parents are home in two hours and I plan on ravishing you completely until then!”

“Grantaire…”

It stopped ringing once more and Grantaire couldn’t help but grin.

“Look, if it was really important, they’ll call again later! In the meantime…” he trailed his lips down Enjolras’s neck sloppily but with precision gained over the course of the four months they’d been dating. Enjolras hummed contentedly but the buzzing sound of the phone cut it short as he pulled away.

“For fuck’s sake!” Grantaire grumbled, grabbing his phone and glaring at the Caller ID with true vitriol. “What the fuck does he want?”

***

_Fucking_ _finally_, Montparnasse thought impatiently – though he figured he had every right to be a little impatient after all his face was bleeding – as Grantaire picked up his phone at last.

“Parnasse,” he said, sounding irritated and just slightly short of breath, “This better be good. I was kind of in the middle of something.”

Any other day, Montparnasse might’ve laughed at that, ribbing his friend playfully, but it was not any other day.

“Yeah?” he said hotly, in no mood to entertain this bullshit. “Well, tell your boyfriend to put his clothes on. This is more important.”

He hissed in pain as he took another drag of his cigarette and Grantaire must've heard because when he spoke next his voice was worried and just short of frantic.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“My nose…” he began but faltered, looking at the time through the crack on his watch. They had no time. He revised his explanation. “Your dad, R. I’m sorry, I had to tell him! He…”

“Hey, hey, calm down. I get it. You had to tell him. Now, what exactly _did_ you tell him?” His voice was all business and somehow Montparnasse would’ve preferred him to be panicking. He had seen Grantaire angry before. He had seen him wild with rage, fists flying nonsensically toward their target, though they likely didn’t have one target specifically. Though, far scarier was Grantaire when he was calm and absolutely furious and ready to destroy his perfectly calculated target. He could picture him now, jaw clenched, nose flaring, fists balled-up tight and eyes aflame with fury.

At one point in time, he might’ve joked about finding it hot, but he never had actually. Grantaire may be a sweetheart but even the people who knew him the best had to fear when he became calm, collected and the epitome of righteous wrath and fury.

Enjolras wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Grantaire this angry before. Not even when that riot police officer tried to pepper spray Jehan at that protest-turned-sour the year before. Then he had seen pushing, shoving and Bahorel holding him back, but, now? There was nothing on the face of the earth to hold him back. It was quite the turn-around in mood after what they had been doing before.

“Grantaire?” he asked, pulling his shirt back down from where it had ridden up. Grantaire silenced him with a finger and pressed speakerphone on. 

“He knows you’ve been living with Ponine,” Montparnasse said. Enjolras could hear him hiss as he inhaled and wondered what Grantaire’s father could have possibly done to him.

“What?” Grantaire seemed dumbstruck in the most awful way, incapable of saying anything else for the time being.

“Montparnasse, what’s wrong?” Enjolras cut in, determined to do something worth it.

Montparnasse didn’t care about his concern, though. He ignored Enjolras for favour of speaking imploringly to Grantaire, his concern palpable even over the phone.

“I’m so sorry, R,” he said and inhaled sharply again. “He’s on his way over now. I’m sor—"

“Don’t worry about it,” Grantaire said suddenly, getting up from the bed and pulling his shoes onto his bare feet. “I’ll deal with it. You call Éponine, warn her, and patch yourself up and I’ll have one of my friends come round to yours and make sure he didn’t break anything vital, okay?”

Grantaire sent a look to Enjolras and he got to work texting Combeferre immediately.

“Don’t worry about me, R. Worry about yourself and Ép and Gav! Alright? And please don’t be stupid. You of all people know how dangerous he is!”

He didn’t pay attention to Montparnasse’s pleading reply. Instead, he grabbed his jacket off the chest of drawers and was halfway towards the door before he said anything in response.

“Stay safe, Parnasse.” He ended the call without another word and Enjolras sprang into action.

“I’ll get my shoes,” he said, mere steps behind Grantaire who stopped in his tracks rather suddenly.

“What?” he exclaimed as he turned on his heel to look at Enjolras who was busying himself with pulling on his shoes. “You’re not coming!” Enjolras scoffed.

“Like hell, I’m not!”

“Apoll—" he began but was cut off.

“Oh, no. This is a serious fucking problem and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you shift me to the side-lines. I’m sorry, Grantaire, but this isn’t up to you. I’m coming and that’s final. Even if I wait in the car it’s better than doing nothing.” Scrubbing his hands over his eyes, Grantaire observed Enjolras for a moment and knew there would be no stopping him if he wanted to come. Enjolras was an unstoppable force and Grantaire was by no means an immovable object, no matter how hard he tried sometimes.

“Okay,” he acquiesced, quickly turning and climbing the stairs that lead out of Enjolras’s room to the rest of the house. “But we’re taking your mum’s car. We need to go fast.” The car in question was a German sporty model gifted to Enjolras’s mother by his father on her fiftieth birthday. It was, by all accounts, a very nice car. Sleek, red, fast… absolutely made for the motorways of Germany… It’s a shame really that the poor car had never seen the Autobahn in its life.

It went unspoken that Enjolras was driving. Not just because he was the only one out of the two to be able to drive legally (sort of). After all, while Grantaire knew how to drive _safely_ in theory (the internet taught him how), getting from point A to point B as quickly and as possible regardless of so-called legality was very much Enjolras’s area of expertise. Now was a time for speed, not for caution.

The two-minute journey into the jaws of the beast was spent in silence. Neither of them was sure what to say. Should they proclaim their undying love just in case the worst should happen? Should Enjolras fire Grantaire up and get him angry enough to face his father with his fists raised? Should Grantaire prepare whatever the fuck he plans to say to the bastard who destroyed his youth? Probably a mixture of all three would be sensible. They didn’t do any of it though. They remained in silence but Enjolras thanked god that the car was an automatic; it allowed them to not spend the quiet alone. One hand on the wheel and one hand in Grantaire’s was how Enjolras drove the car and, whilst he knew that their destination was one Grantaire would have to face alone, that didn’t mean that he had to _feel _alone.

If it was up to Enjolras, Grantaire would never feel alone a day in his life and he was damned if he was going to let himself falter in that goal for even a moment.

***

Éponine was having a less than ideal afternoon.

Sure, school had been alright, but your best friend’s dad trying to force his way through your front door really does cast the whole day in a sour mood.

The sun was shining at the house wasn’t freezing for once and she had been enjoying having a drink in the rarely used conservatory as she scrolled through Instagram – for once being able to act like a normal teenager – when Gavroche had come running to her saying something about Grantaire’s dad walking towards the front door. She was pretty sure her glass had smashed on the floor but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was sprinting to the front door which she was horribly certain she had forgotten to lock.

She had almost made it in time. Almost.

The door was opening, it was like she was watching it play out in slow motion before her very eyes. And all of a sudden, she dove. Her weight was against the door, she was bracing against the wall, and her phone was ringing.

That’s always the way, isn’t it? You wait an hour for a bus and suddenly three come along at once. That’s how the saying goes, isn’t it?

She wasn’t sure what made her answer the phone but, later, she reasoned that she mustn’t’ve have read the Caller ID because she never answered Montparnasse’s calls.

“Ponine!” he shouted over the phone loud enough to make her cringe with the volume. “R’s dad is on his way to yours!”

“I’m fucking aware!” she yelled, clearly irritated but without much venom to her voice. Or, at least, not venom directed at him.

From over the phone, Montparnasse could hear the muffled shouting that, no doubt, came from Grantaire’s father demanding to be let in. His blood ran cold and he scrambled to pull himself away from Combeferre who was persistently examining his nose despite him protesting that he was, in fact, just fine.

“Oh shit. Do you need help? R’s on his way but I could come too…?”

Had he not been so focused on trying to get away from the guy and listen to Éponine at the same time, Montparnasse would’ve noticed how Combeferre’s breathing picked up anxiously and just how worried he looked at the mention of Éponine being in danger. As it was, though, he missed it. No matter, really, he had bigger fish to fry.

“No! Ah, fuck… just… uh… stay where you are and let Ferre patch you up!”

Sometimes, even in moments of crisis, he swore that woman was a witch.

“How did you…?”

“I heard him breathing,” she said as though that didn’t just raise more questions as to how she could recognise Combeferre’s breathing in the background of a shitty phone call. Luckily for Montparnasse’s confused brain, she went on. “The only reason he’d talk to you outside of school is if he's patching you up.” Then she sighed. Just the way she had when she’d been to a play rehearsal and he’d asked her what she thought of his performance; she was about to compliment him. The sigh existed to show him just how strenuous it was for her to compliment him. “You’re not a rat, Parnasse. You’re a piece of shit sometimes, but you’re not a ra— Gavroche you get over here and push with me! I’ve got to go.”

“Be safe, Ponine. Don’t do anything stupid.”

He had expected the line to go dead immediately, but he heard the faint sound of grunting, a huffed breath and Gavroche saying something in the background before he heard her again. She sounded scared in that specific way that parents do when they’re trying to be strong for their children despite how absolutely terrified they are.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Then the line went dead.

***

Even unyielding and creaking the way the new leather of the car seat was, Grantaire would have much preferred to stay in the car to the prospect of facing the hulking mass of fury that was his father hammering at the just-slightly-ajar door of the Thénardier home.

He had thought that the moment he saw the bastard who ruined his childhood, he would have been overcome with anger and a desire for revenge. It had seemed like a safe assumption. And, yet, even though he hadn’t even noticed Grantaire’s presence outside the house – albeit in a car – Grantaire’s father had enough power over him to make him shrink into the fine leather of his seat.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, his voice just barely audible over the scuffle ten metres away.

Enjolras nodded, for once in his life struggling to find his voice.

“Me too,” he managed, “But you have to do this.”

Yes, he did, and he knew it. Better rip off the plaster, so to speak, then. He reached for the door handle that stood between him and certain pain.

“Wait!” Enjolras hissed suddenly, tugging Grantaire back by the sleeve of his jacket. He’d had a thought. Well, he’d had a million thoughts, but one, in particular, stood out.

As he looked back at him, Grantaire’s expression was almost pained. He was scared and he didn’t want to do what needed to be done and the overall effect of it broke Enjolras’s heart. It broke his heart to think of the twelve-year-old kid in year eight so scared of having to face his father again that he nearly ended it all. Because, at that moment, Enjolras saw that child, that scared child on Grantaire’s face and it pained him so. He was just a kid. Hell, they were still just kids! How is it fair that he’d had to deal with so much so young? How is that fair?

Grantaire was terrified, and Enjolras was going to do everything in his power to lessen that fear for as long as there was breath in his lungs and blood in his veins.

“Apollo, I have to…” Grantaire started, just barely holding it together.

“I know, I know.” Enjolras reached out and stroked his cheek, he leaned into it and closed his eyes instinctively. “But you can’t do this on your own.” Grantaire opened his eyes, knowing exactly what was coming and that there was no way of stopping it. “So, what do you need me to do?”

“Shit… Uh…” he dared to glance towards where his father was hammering against the door and came up with the barebones of a plan. “I’ll distract him and you go round the back and get Gav and Ponine out as soon as you can, alright?”

“Alright.” Enjolras hesitated, not knowing whether he wanted his next question answered. He didn’t, but he _had _to know. “How are you going to distract him?”

Grantaire looked away from the scene at the door and back at him with tears in his eyes. Enjolras thought that perhaps Grantaire knew that, deep down, he didn’t really want to know the plan because, in the end, he didn’t offer him an answer.

“… I love you,” he said instead, his voice cracking. “So much.”

Enjolras could’ve sworn his heart actually skipped a beat and his breath caught in his throat then.

“I love you too. So, so much.” Neither said a thing for a moment or two until a loud thud from the direction of the house brought them back down to earth. “Good luck,” Enjolras managed to gasp out, kissing Grantaire sweetly before they both left the relative safety of the car.

“Thanks,” Grantaire chuckled bitterly as he closed the car door. “ I think I’m going to need it.”

He wasn’t ready. That was the only thought swirling through his head. Maybe that was selfish of him, but it was all he could think.

He wasn’t ready for this.

But he had to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter again, I know, and to make it worse there'll be no new chapter next week as it's kind of the main conflict chapter so it's likely to be pretty long (also I'm going to the cinema to see the live broadcast of the les mis concert so I probably wouldn't be able to upload anyway). So, yeah, no new chapter next week. We're nearing the end though! Just six more chapters until it's all over! Unless I think of another idea within the universe but that's not going to happen for a while...
> 
> Also, we were doing political correctness in English Language today and someone brought up the term 'combfree' as a way of referring to someone who is bald and all I could see was Combeferre so I think it's safe to say that this fandom has taken over my life completely.


	17. Honestly, Grantaire’s Father Is Just A Grade-A Asshole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we all thought Grantaire's father couldn't be any more of a deplorable human being...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW - BLOOD, INJURY, VIOLENCE, REFERENCES TO THAT NIGHT IN YEAR EIGHT™, IMPLIED/REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, ANXIETY
> 
> We're nearing the end now, guys! Thank you for sticking with this story for so long and thank you for having patience with me!
> 
> Enjoy!

According to The Baltimore Bird Club, the proper collective term for a group of falcons is a cast. This is a fact that none of our characters are aware of, perhaps excluding Combeferre and his strange volume of knowledge on most topics, especially those like the collective nouns for animals. After all, he had been the one to educate the group in year eleven, during the midst of exam season, that a group of ladybirds is, in fact, known as a ‘lovely’. However, as sweet as the ladybird fact is, the fact that Grantaire does not know what the collective noun for a group of falcons is – he would likely refer to them as a flock or perhaps a brood – does not mean that he doesn’t think it’s stupid, as terms go.

This was not his thought process at he approached the turned, hunched-over figure of his father. No, that thought process was less focussed and more of a never-ending train of thoughts just as weird but not entirely as unsuitable for the situation.

If one were to try to put it into words rather than just the homogenous ball of panic that his thoughts had become, it would probably go something like this.

_Fucking hell, fucking hell, fucking hell I’m fucking terrified what the fuck am I doing why didn’t I just pack up and move to the Himalayas when I learned how to walk fuck me I don’t want to do this fucking butterflies in my stomach more like peregrine fucking falcons oh my god what is the collective noun for a peregrine falcon anyway ah fuck I’m like two feet away oh fuck…_

And so on.

Almost completely incoherent and full of mental detours all culminating in the unhelpful conclusion that this is, in fact, the dark timeline.

“Oi!” a deceptively confident shout came from him unexpectedly. The hunched, hulking figure of his father turned to face him just long enough for Éponine to shut the door. Just.

His father sneered at him as though he was something disgusting he had found on the bottom of his shoe and turned back to the door to force it open once more, only pausing briefly to shout at Grantaire ominously over his shoulder.

“I’ll deal with you later.”

“No!” Grantaire was surprised by his own bravery. God only knows where it had come from. “You and me. We deal with this here and now. One to one. Or are you too scared to face your son like a real man?”

If there’s one good thing to come out of toxic masculinity – there aren’t many – it’s that a fragile man-child such as the seeping pustule of a person that was Grantaire’s father cannot say no to such a challenge. After all, weakness is, of course, inherently bad and clearly, nothing is more of display of weakness than refusing to punch an actual child in the face.

Truth be told, it actually hurt Grantaire to bait his father in such, obviously not because he was afraid of hurting his father’s feelings (he wasn’t) but rather that there was a voice in his head that sounded rather suspiciously like Musichetta berating him for perpetuating such a rhetoric, even in such circumstances as these.

Still, he reasoned with the Musichetta-like voice, the bait had served its purpose. His father had been distracted and the door had snapped fully shut this time.

***

Round the back and get Gav and Ponine out. That should be easy.

It wasn’t.

For starters, in his nervous state, Grantaire had completely forgotten to tell Enjolras where the spare key for the back door was hidden. Or, for that matter, if there even was a spare key for the back door. There had to be, though, right? He just had to work out where a family like the Thénardier’s would hide such an item.

That was a task easier said than done as it turned out.

Under the doormat? Nope. They didn’t have one.

In a potted plant? No plants. Nothing in any of the three pots of empty dirt either.

The sound of Grantaire calling out to his father from the front of the house added an element of panic into Enjolras’s search.

Think, think, Enjolras! Think!

What does he know about the Thénardier’s? Answer? Not much at all.

He knows that neither Éponine nor Gavroche trusts their parents so realistically they would put it somewhere that they would never think to look. He was also sure that they wouldn’t put the emergency key somewhere too high up that nether Grantaire nor Gavroche could reach it so at least that limits his search to just under 6ft off the ground. Unless…

Doorframe!

It occurred to him that he hadn’t checked it. Like a moron, he’d just completely bypassed it.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon… ah-ha!

He was through the door with minimal fumbling of the key in the lock and lunging towards where Éponine and Gavroche were struggling against the other door.

“About time!” Éponine exclaimed, fumbling with the lock as Enjolras’s added weight closed the door entirely.

Even though the door being locked meant something akin to momentary safety for the three inside, Enjolras and Gavroche stayed leaning against it nonetheless, partially for peace of mind and partially because _goddammit they needed a rest. _Éponine, on the other hand, was, as ever, straight into sensible, business mode.

Or, at least, that’s what Enjolras had assumed was happening, but suddenly Éponine was starting towards the staircase leading upstairs.

“We have to get out of here,” he pointed out. She stopped and retreated halfway back down the stairs.

“Yeah, you do. Take Gav and get out.”

“What about you? I’m not leaving you when any of us are in danger!”

“I can take care of myself!” she called, now making her way back up. “There’s something I need to go and get before I leave.

“We’re not leaving without you,” Gavroche piped up, a no-nonsense tone in his voice.

“Gav…” she turned and walked back down again, her voice softer in an almost pleading way. Enjolras couldn’t imagine Éponine speaking to him in such a _nice _way as opposed to her usual smirking, matter-of-fact tone. If she did, he realised, he would likely cave immediately. Gavroche, on the other hand, did not seem to share such a weakness for his family. At least, not just.

“Ponine, no,” he insisted. “We’re _not_ leaving you here alone.”

She groaned in frustration and rubbed her temples as though the whole ordeal was giving her an almighty headache.

“Fine, okay, uh… Yeah, okay…” She was formulating a plan. It was clear for anyone to see. And, yes, perhaps there wasn’t much scope for grand plans given that there was a madman outside their door, but she would be damned if she didn’t at least try and she really wasn’t the kind of person to give up so easily. “Enjolras,” she said resolutely, directing him with various hand gestures that he tried his best to pay attention to, “you take Gav and wait out back in the garden. Away from the gate to the front, got it? I’ll go and get my thing and meet you there.”

“Fine,” he said, as though he had any choice in the matter at all! “But be quick! I don’t know how long we’ve got.”

And he truly didn’t know, he realised at he watched Éponine’s hurried figure retreat upstairs to get whatever was so damn important that it warranted fetching in such a time. Grantaire may be the cynic in their group and Enjolras the eternal optimist, but Enjolras couldn’t help but think bitterly that maybe if this thing was so fucking important that she had to rush away in a time like this then maybe she should just carry it with her all the time, just to be safe.

It was bullshit and completely moronic, but people think stupid shit when they’re scared out of their minds.

***

Trying his very best to suppress the frightened shaking threatening to overcome his body, Grantaire squared his shoulders and faced his father.

“Come away from the door and fight me if you have to, just leave Éponine and Gavroche out of this!” His voice quavered slightly at the end and Grantaire cursed the self-satisfied, sickening leer that crossed over his father’s face as he heard it.

“I’ll leave them out of it,” he said, still leering in a way that made Grantaire want to retch, “when you give me my money.”

In hindsight, Grantaire realised that he had been rather stupid to expect any kind of relief when his father was facing him rather than devoting any of his stunted attention span to the door. He had expected to feel relieved that Éponine and Gavroche and, now, Enjolras were safe beyond the door but all he felt was the awful realisation that that had just been one of the many hurdles coming towards him at an alarming rate. The next hurdle was undoubtedly the oncoming fight. It was inevitable and awful and he had to win because, in his mind, Grantaire was the only thing keeping his father from his friends and he would rather die a thousand deaths than see that happen.

And here it comes.

His father advanced on him in an enraged frenzy nothing short of murderous.

“I don’t have your money.” It came out of his mouth without a second thought and less than a second later his attacker had grabbed the collar of his jumper, yanking Grantaire forward with almost enough force to scuff the toes of his trainers along the rough tarmac on the ground.

“Don’t lie to me, you little shit!” he spat and Grantaire endeavoured to regain his cool composure by wiping the spittle away from his face without breaking eye contact with the furious man above him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Apparently, the cool, uncaring exterior was not quite the look he should’ve gone for. How did he know, you may ask? Well, the fist suddenly colliding with his face was a pretty good hint.

“Where’s my money!” he demanded again, pushing him away suddenly by the neck. Then Grantaire’s knees buckled. It must’ve been from the sudden pain in his cheek or perhaps just the shock of it all but he was suddenly on the ground, only able to stutter a vague response to his attacker and curl around himself as protectively as he could manage in his dazed and dizzied state. Later Grantaire would scold himself for not employing the years of boxing experience to at least defend himself

“I don’t… I don’t kno—”

His attacker wasn’t having any of it, though.

“Give me my money!” he demanded once more and landed a kick to Grantaire’s defenceless ribs.

***

Enjolras had never really been one for nervous tapping – it was more of Courfeyrac’s thing – but more and more recently he had found himself drumming his fingers against his thigh or a table or literally any surface that would allow him to relieve some of the pent up anxiety-driven adrenaline that was coursing through his veins. And so he tapped his fingers incessantly against the glass panes of the conservatory and ignored the slightly irritated, dirty looks he was getting from Gavroche from his understandably annoying habit.

_C’mon, c’mon, Éponine! Hurry up! _he thought, desperately trying to block out the sounds coming from the driveway.

“I’ve got it,” Éponine announced, bounding out of the house and into the garden and clutching a small wooden box to her chest as though she’d just unearthed the holy grail in her brief time upstairs. “We’ll have to wait here,” she went on, grimacing as the sound of the attacker’s awful, grunting voice leaked through the flimsy, barely hinged gate separating the driveway from the back garden. “There’s no way we can get past—"

Suddenly, a shout and a thud and then a pained groan that came unmistakably from Grantaire and made Enjolras’s blood run cold.

“Grantaire!” he yelped, leaping – or at least attempting to – towards the awful sounds. Holding him back, however, was the surprisingly firm grip of Gavroche.

“No, Enjolras, you can’t,” he insisted, his voice eerily calm for someone so young in such a situation. “You have to get Ponine and me out and into your car and you can’t do that if you’re on the pavement being beaten to a pulp!” He was logical and, by all means necessary, in the right and Enjolras saw that. I know, I’m surprised as you are at his willingness to just let this happen.

Then:

“Ahh!” A horrifying wail from Grantaire and, Enjolras was sure he wasn’t imagining it, a faint cracking, crunching sound, as though the world’s largest boot had stepped on the world’s largest snail half a kilometre away.

“Taire!” And no circus strongman in the entire human history of rights-violating freakshows could ever have held Enjolras back then.

He might’ve opened the gate leading into the drive, but, then again, it’s possible that he just ploughed straight through without a moment’s thought. Thinking briefly that he must make a note to replace it at a later date in the case of the latter, though, the sight of Grantaire on the ground, curled up into a protective ball as his attacker loomed over him was more than enough to stop Enjolras’s thoughts in their tracks and banish any wonderings concerning the poor ruined gate from his mind entirely. 

He ducked behind Grantaire’s attacker and, from this new angle, Enjolras could see the state of his boyfriend in more detail and the sight made his blood feel as though it was freezing and boiling simultaneously. Grantaire was curled up and obviously in agony but other than his brow creased in what must’ve been so much pain there was no sign of consciousness. Angry red-and-purple-tinged skin covered at least half of his face, the swelling was obvious around his cheekbone and nose and the blood, oh the blood! Enjolras had never been particularly squeamish but Grantaire’s blood made him feel nauseous and faint and filled him with such a blinding fury that he didn’t notice himself launching towards the attacker, a flurry of fists and tears and years’ worth of anger and regret over not doing this sooner.

You know how they say every cloud has a silver lining? Well, we’ll start with the silver lining here to soften the blow, so to speak.

Silver Lining no. 1 – Enjolras managed to catch Grantaire’s attacker off guard and so wasn’t immediately hit, or kicked, or elbowed or otherwise maimed.

Silver Lining no. 2 – The amount of satisfaction he got from feeling that _awful _man’s nose crunch unnaturally under his fist! Enjolras was rarely one to advocate for outright violence, but he’d make an exception here. He’d been waiting to do that since the display he made after Grantaire’s play in year eight

Now for the cloud.

Just because Enjolras managed to miraculously catch the bastard off guard didn’t mean that he automatically had the upper hand.

But what about the height difference? I hear you cry. Nope, even those few inches that set the bastard at nose height for him, Enjolras still found himself being flung like a ragdoll to the side in a moment.

He hit the tarmac hard. Oh, no, actually. It wasn’t tarmac. This part of the driveway, this small part that was laid with steps leading to the back gate, was paved with concrete.

Ah, concrete. That robust and sustainable building material that was, in this case, near skull-splitting with its density.

One moment Enjolras had been on his feet and the next he was on his side on the concrete steps. His bare arms and skin through the rips in his jeans were scraped raw and beginning to bleed in mere seconds, his ankles hurt where they had twisted on the way down to his current position, his vision swam and his ears rang and there was a horrible, searing pain in his head. A concussion. It must be, what with the force he was thrown at the ground with.

Though he should have probably been concerned with wherever his attacker had rapidly disappeared to, all Enjolras could think of was Grantaire.

From what Enjolras could tell through his blurred vision, Grantaire was hurt badly. Much worse than him. It had been obviously bad before, but now? It was worse. Undeniably so. Whatever semblance of consciousness Grantaire had been grasping onto seemed to have slipped through his fingers. He was no longer curled around himself protectively, just frighteningly limp, the bruising and bleeding really starting to pick up. His face was dark purple in places, almost black, and there was blood coming from somewhere on his forehead and probably his nose too and… Enjolras had to look away, instead focussing on the way his head was splitting and his hairline felt damp and, oh! He was beginning to feel woozy. Oh, dear. Even in his addled state, Enjolras knew that didn’t sound good. He could hear Joly worrying from a mile away. It was okay, though. The sirens he had completely failed to hear only moments ago were growing louder and nearer by the second. They could help Grantaire. He would help them help Grantaire… if only he could manage to sit up because he was having real trouble moving right at that second.

Through his periphery, he could see something happening, two darting shapes running about around him, both going immediately into the fray. By the time he had managed to focus, they had both backed off, out of sight for him and his limited view, and the attacker was kneeling, his hands bound by something behind his back. With his increasingly blurry vision, Enjolras could just make out the way that the bastard’s head jerked suddenly at the high-pitched sound growing ever closer.

At least Enjolras hadn’t been the only one who had missed the faint sound of sirens fast approaching. Perhaps the one good thing to happen that afternoon – other than the satisfaction with the punching of abusive douchebags – was the suddenly, dare I say, _frightened _look on the bastard’s face as the sirens became unmissable and the police cars pulled into the cul-de-sac.

Hey, I guess every cloud _does_ have a silver lining.

Then clouds obscured his vision and the world went dark just as two police officers tackled the stunned dickhead to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm sorry this was never going to be a pleasant chapter to read. If it's any consolation, it wasn't exactly a joy to write either. I want them to be happy just as much as you do, dammit!


	18. A Stupid Chapter Written For The Juvenile Satisfaction Of The Author

“What’s happening?” Courfeyrac asked, turning quickly to face Jehan from his sudden place in The Sanctuary. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but I was just at my house. Now I’m here.”

Jehan smiled at their book and leaned over to plant a small kiss on their boyfriend’s lips.

“Isn’t it obvious?” they asked.

It wasn’t obvious. Not even slightly. Since when was teleportation a thing? And why him? And, why, of all places – though he truly loved seeing his lover – here?

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’ casually as though his outlook on physics wasn’t entirely shattering around him.

Jehan just smiled once again.

“As I understand it, the author wants Ao3 to display the word count 69420 until the next update and she figured you’d appreciate the joke the most.”

“69420?” They nodded. “Nice. I should tell Bahorel.”

Bahorel was suddenly beside him.

“What the fuck?”

“Hey, Rel! 69420!”

Despite his immense confusion, Bahorel laughed. “Nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT UPDATE: The next chapter will be a few days late. I’m not sure quite when it’ll be up but I promise that I am writing it. I am genuinely sorry about this but it has been a particularly rough week for me and I haven’t been able to begin writing until Sunday night and today (Monday) has been even worse than last week and I’m struggling to get the words to come. I will endeavour to get it out before Friday but I can’t promise that. I’m sorry.


	19. Once More Unto The Hospital We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire finally wakes up in the hospital, but he does not get to rest for long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, okay, I know this is really late and I sincerely apologise for that. But, in my defence, I'm still going to upload it on a Monday, even if it is one week late. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this chapter as I put a lot of work into it and it might be the longest so far.
> 
> CW - INJURY, REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, REFERENCED SUICIDAL THOUGHTS (if you squint)
> 
> Enjoy!

The last time Grantaire had a hangover was on the morning of New Year’s Day. It wasn’t too bad – or at least it wasn’t the worst he’d ever had – but his head still hurt and his mouth was still dry and, ugh, the vomiting had _not _been pleasant.

That was eleven weeks and one day ago and, though he didn’t remember getting drunk, Grantaire woke up sure that he was deeply hungover.

His brain felt four sizes too big for his head, his mouth felt as though he’d tried to eat the Sahara Desert, his arms felt heavy (though one rather more than the other) and the way that the light was streaming into the room was bordering on torturous. _Wow_, he thought, _I must’ve had an amazing night!_

Then it all came back to him.

The fear, the pain, the anger… he remembered it all so suddenly and violently that he couldn’t help the tear that slid down his cheek.

Not quite the amazing night he’d thought.

“Grantaire?” a worried voiced asked somewhere off to the side. He didn’t need to look over to know who it was, he’d know that voice anywhere.

“Enjolras,” he said, his tone steady though there was a tempest of emotional and physical pain raging in his head. And, yet, in a matter of seconds, that was all pushed aside as another awful thought occurred to him. “Are you okay? I swear to _fuck _if he hurt you, no number of armed guards is going to be able to keep him from me!”

And then he was being tackled. Kisses were pressed to every available inch of his face and, whilst he was incredibly grateful for the affection, it sure did hurt like a bitch.

“Apollo, please!” he said after a minute once the pain tipped just over the edge of manageable and into the realm of _Fucking hell that really hurts!_ “Be gentle! I literally have a broken face.”

Enjolras pulled away immediately but stayed close. From this angle, Grantaire could see the dried blood in his hair and the bruising on his head and he didn’t know what had happened but his Apollo had been hurt and he was going to wreak havoc to whoever did this (there was no doubt in his mind over who did it) just as soon as he was able to move his right arm again.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry! I forgot. I’m just so happy that you’re awake!” Enjolras exclaimed, sitting back and smiling brightly at Grantaire despite the exhaustion that was clear as day on his face. “They said it could be another few days before you’re healed enough to wake up…” It was as though the thought of the mere possibility of Grantaire being asleep for any longer wiped the smile straight off his face. Well, that wouldn’t do at all.

“And you were just going to wait for me? Next to my bed? For days?”

“Well…” The way Enjolras rubbed his neck just then was almost sheepish; not a shade often seen on the dear leader. Smiling despite the pain in his face only just beginning to fade, Grantaire reached up with his good hand to cup his boyfriend’s cheek. Their friends were right, they _are_ sickeningly sweet sometimes.

“Apollo, that’s very sweet and only slightly stalkerish, but you should have gone home and at least showered,” he said reaching up with his mobile arm to touch the blood-soaked hair lightly, frown on his face. “After all, even if I did wake up without you, I’d probably just go right back to sleep. You know I’m terrible in the mornings!” The smile was back on his Apollo’s face and Grantaire was grateful, but the sight of the stitches on his head prevented him from doing to same.

“Enjolras, I—” he paused, searching for the right way to say what was going through his head, “I’m so, so sorry that I let you get caught up in this. That fucker was _never_ supposed to be able to lay a hand on you. I’m sorry I let you get involved in—”

“Oh, shut up,” Enjolras cut him off. Ah, yes, Grantaire was very much familiar with that tone of voice. It is the tone of _Grantaire You’re Being A Dumbass And I’m Going To Explain To You How Whether You Like It Or Not. _

“Apollo—” he started, for some reason thinking that there was even a tiny chance that Enjolras would take it easy on him because of a few bruises.

“Nope. Let me talk,” he said and Grantaire shut his mouth without hesitation. As I said, he was familiar with this situation. “First of all, you didn’t _let _me do anything. Everything I did was of my own volition and you had no say in it, alright? And, second, I would do _everything_ again a _thousand_ times over if it means you being able to wake up safe and, yes, a little bruised, but _alive. _You got that?”

“I’m still sorry it happened.” There was little defiance in his voice but Grantaire felt that it was necessary to say anyway, even just for the petty sake of getting the last word in.

Enjolras sighed and retook his hand, stroking the knuckles gently. “I’m sorry it happened too, but it was neither of our faults. I love you, Grantaire, and keeping you safe it worth a concussion.”

“I love you too. Just, uh… let’s agree to never be in this situation again, alright?”

“Agreed. Concussions are not fun.”

There were several beats of silence. This was not an uncommon occurrence for the two but the wight of something being left unsaid between them as it was then was strange and worrying to the both of them. Finally, in a sudden break of character, Grantaire was the one to speak up.

“I have a feeling I’m more than ‘_a little bruised’_.” Enjolras halted his ministrations on Grantaire’s good hand but refrained from looking back up at his boyfriend’s face. Grantaire forged forward. “I mean, I just have this sneaking suspicion that they didn’t put my arm in a pot just to stop the bruising from getting worse.” His tone, as ever, was comedic and light but it was clear to Enjolras that he was scared underneath the thinly veiled humour. He was scared. That was exactly what he had been trying to avoid through not telling him!

“Uh, yeah. It’s broken. It was quite a clean break though, apparently!”

Ah, there was his Apollo. Always looking on the bright side. If he was a Monty Python sketch… well, it’s pretty obvious which one he would be.

“Thank you,” Grantaire said, the sarcasm clear – though with no hint of malice – in his voice, “that’s very reassuring.”

Enjolras was suddenly reaching and straining over to the bedside cupboard thing and retrieving something. What it could be Grantaire had no idea because he was certain that cupboard only contained a single pack of off-brand sanitary towels, a small box of tissues and a suspiciously tepid bottle of water. Oh, and apparently a printed-out x-ray. Neat.

As always, Enjolras was right. As broken bones go, that arm looked pretty clean. No splintering or crunching (I’m so sorry for describing it like that), just a space in the middle of the arm that _should _have been where the bone continued except it didn’t. Now, a broken bone, in any case, is not ideal but if one were to break a bone Grantaire would imagine that one should hope that it would break like this. Then again Grantaire barely scraped through GCSE biology so he’s not exactly the person to go to for bone science.

“I just mean,” Enjolras continued, thoroughly unaware that Grantaire had been distracted by the disgust of his own train of thought that led to him thinking the words ‘bone scientist’, “that it shouldn’t take more than six weeks to heal. But, uh… Are you sure you want to know the rest?” His nervous trepidation brought Grantaire back out form his thoughts and into the real world once again. It took him a good ten seconds to properly process what he had almost completely missed.

“Just tell me,” he sighed eventually. “The sooner you tell me, the sooner I can get to repressing the resulting trauma.”

“Taire…”

He shook his head at Enjolras’s disapproving tone. “Nope, sorry, badly judged joke,” he moved his good hand to stroke his boyfriend’s arm in what he hoped was an apologetic way. You’d have thought that Grantaire would be amazing at apologising for jokes that are just a little too dark for their situation given how often he’s had to do it, but he was just as awkward as the first time he had stunned the rest of Les Amis with how dark his humour could be. “Just tell me, okay?”

Enjolras didn’t seem entirely satisfied. His frown was back, and he had that ‘C’mon, Taire, be serious’ look on his face that Grantaire was oh so used to seeing. Fortunately, he seemed to take pity on his battered boyfriend and so didn’t say anything to chastise him. “You have three broken ribs one of which punctured your left lung, your left cheekbone was fractured, your nose was broken pretty badly and they’ll have to fix that in surgery in a few days and your left kidney was bruised pretty badly.”

“How badly?” Grantaire had a vague memory from his early childhood of his mother falling down the stairs and bruising her kidney at some point. She’d had to go to the hospital because it kept making her pass out. Even at such a young age, Grantaire had understood and carried through to today that a bruised kidney is a _bad _thing. It can make you anaemic and give you blood clots and kill you if left untreated… no, it wasn’t good.

“Bad enough that they put an IV and catheter in and keep taking your pee away to analyse.” Well, that didn’t exactly help him feel less anxious. Thankfully, Enjolras continued and managed to cure some of his worries right after he ramped them up. Best of both worlds, I guess? “I think they’re making sure that you’re not anaemic or bleeding internally, but they haven’t come rushing in looking worried yet so I’m pretty sure you’ll be okay.”

“Right.” Grantaire let out a shaky breath and, smiling not too bitterly, continued. “My left side is just pretty fucked in general, then?”

“If it’s any consolation, they’re pretty sure your arm broke when you fell so at least he didn’t get the satisfaction of breaking it.”

“You know, weirdly, that does kind of help.”

It wasn’t the weird speculation that helped, though. It was the barely subdued fury in Enjolras’s eyes as he spoke about what _that man _had done, the obvious hatred, pure and unadulterated, that he felt without even mentioning his name.

Suddenly, they were distracted as a cheery and friendly-looking nurse burst into the room¹.

“Oh, you’re awake!” she exclaimed loudly for which Enjolras was not grateful given the fact that his head was still pounding relentlessly. “That’s very good to see. And how are you feeling?”

Grantaire chuckled dryly and looked down at himself. “Sore,” was all he said and Enjolras couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the nurse having to deal with Grantaire’s particular brand of humour being thoroughly unhelpful as she just tried to do her job. 

“Well, yes. That’s quite the list of injuries you’ve got there.” And, to her eternal credit, the nurse didn’t seem even slightly fazed by Grantaire’s unhelpful answer. Instead, she continued with her job and picked up the chart at the end of the bed and look over it thoughtfully. Enjolras made a mental note to buy her some flowers because there was no doubt in his mind that Grantaire wouldn’t remain just as grumpy and difficult to those trying to take care of him. He loved him, okay? But everyone who knows Grantaire enough to love him knows that he is a nightmare when injured or ill. Bahorel once skipped three days of school because Grantaire had a minor cold and wouldn’t stop complaining about it. “Don’t worry, though,” the nurse went on. “Your kidney doesn’t look as bad as we were worried it might be, so you’ll probably be out of here in the next couple of days or so. We just want to observe your lung for a bit.”

Grantaire nodded and Enjolras, not impressed with his boyfriend’s lack of visible gratefulness spoke up.

“Thank you.” The nurse turned to leave, smiling as she went, but turned back at the last minute.

“Oh! And you’ve got some visitors in the waiting room. Would you like me to send for them?”

“Visitors?” Now Grantaire spoke up properly, his frown replaced by curiosity and no small amount of confusion.

“Yes. A girl about your age, a younger boy…” He gasped, cutting her off. How had he forgotten about Éponine and Gavroche?!

“Yes!” he just about shouted and noting both the nurse’s raised eyebrows and his boyfriend’s flinch at the sharp sound, cleared his throat and continued more quietly. “Sorry. Yes, please send them in! They’re, uh, my brother and sister.” The nurse nodded and disappeared away.

No more than two minutes later, Éponine and Gavroche came bounding into the room, followed – surprisingly – by Valjean and Cosette.

Grantaire assumed, quite reasonably he thought, that Éponine would stop running once she got to his bedside. He was, in fact, mistaken. Twice. Gavroche didn’t stop either. They leapt onto him with no regard or thought for his plastered arm and each embraced one side of his chest tightly.

Briefly, Grantaire was tempted to joke that he was sick of being pounced on by people given his current state, but he never would. Not really. Not with the way Éponine, though feigning anger, was clinging to him and pretending she wasn’t just as scared as Enjolras was that he wouldn’t wake up.

“Don’t you _fucking_ do that _ever _again, you _dickhead_!” She hissed at him loudly once both of them had pulled away and shoved at his good shoulder harshly.

_“Ponine_…” he stressed in a warning tone, watching Valjean over her shoulder who, eyebrows raised, was endeavouring to not look at the two teens. Éponine glanced over her shoulder and, with the least amount of care in her voice that he had heard in a long time, apologised.

“Right. Sorry, Sir.” Valjean looked towards her and was very clearly trying not to show just how amused he was at her harmless insincerity.

“I didn’t hear a thing.”

Their reunion was not as teary-eyed as one might’ve expected. Emotions ran high, sure, but that emotion was mostly relief. The three of them had been dealing with the truth of Grantaire’s situation for years – yes, three, Gavroche knew everything and had since almost the very beginning, he was nowhere near as oblivious as some people had taken to believing – and so, now that it was over... They were almost unsure as of what to do. How are you supposed to go on living your life as before as if nothing has changed when such a big part of your life has gone? Even if that part was making your life objectively worse?

Éponine had a plan, of course, for how to proceed. Well, at least Grantaire assumed she did… Of course, she did! She’s Éponine! She always has a plan! Right…?

Éponine, in reality, had no plan. She knew it and Gavroche knew it and they had agreed not to let on to Grantaire just yet because he did not need that on top of a broken arm, a punctured lung, a handful of broken ribs and whatever else the fuck was wrong with him. She knew what she planned to do for as long as she was allowed to see him, though. As sappy as it sounds, the only thing Éponine could reasonably conceive of doing is to stay beside Grantaire’s bed and hold his hand as long as she would let him. Enjolras had had his turn, now it was hers.

In the end, she held his good hand for ten minutes. They chatted about anything other than what had happened and she ribbed him for how his nose was now even more crooked than before and he joked that he was going to get the surgeons to make his nose prettier when they were fixing it and so she would eat her words when he came out looking like a young Patrick Dempsey.

It was all going so well, and no one had mentioned the elephant in the room for a while and, oh, the pain killers were kicking in and so Grantaire’s skin no longer felt as though it was on fire everywhere he had a bruise.

And then his phone rang.

“R!” Jehan almost screamed down the line as a car horn honked in the background of the call. “Are you and Enjolras okay?! Your plants withered yesterday and then neither of you showed up for school today! Éponine said you two were probably off doing… well, each other and Combeferre agreed, but I don’t believe either of them. Are you okay?”

Oh, how to explain such a thing in a phone call? As always, he looked to Éponine for help. She shook her head. _So, _he supposed, _I guess we’re _not _doing this over the phone._

“We’re okay,” he settled on saying after a moment’s pause. “Relatively speaking. Listen, can you get everyone to the Riverside Hospital tomorrow after school?” He could hear them inhale – perhaps a dramatic gasp or as a strategic precursor to a lecture – but he cut them off before they had a chance to go on. “Don’t freak out, I’ll explain everything then. Please try not to worry, but something happened with my dad and I have to stay here for a couple of days now. I’m okay, though. Promise me you’ll try not to worry?” There was another sigh over the phone and a moment of silence in which all that could be heard was car engines from nearby.

“I promise,” they said eventually, quickly continuing in a warning tone that left no room for argument. “But you have to tell me everything tomorrow. Don’t be a dick and leave something important out for my peace of mind, you cunt. And don’t try and deny that you do that because you fucking do it all the time and I’m not having it, okay?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle lightly. Even while he was in the hospital and very obviously injured, Jehan wasn’t going to put up with his shit.

Jehan Prouvaire might be artsy and poetic and aspire to have their corpse one day decompose and provide nutrients to a wilting willow tree, but that does not mean they’re willing to deal with Grantaire being the typically stubborn bastard that he is.

“Okay,” he agreed with a small smile, “I won’t. Now might be a good time to mention that Monsieur Valjean is here right now and you’re on speakerphone, so you might want to watch your language.”

“Shit. Sorry, Sir!”

“As I said before,” Valjean said looking purposefully out of the window and away from the conversation happening before him, “I didn’t hear a thing.”

“Did I miss anything interesting today?” Grantaire asked after a moment, dying to hear something from his friend’s lives that wasn’t being negatively impacted by his.

“Nothing particularly special. Bossuet walked into Javert while going at full speed so that was fun for him, Cosette brought cookies to the meeting today and so we were too busy eating them to get anything done.” Enjolras audibly grumbled from where he was leaning on the windowpane at that and Grantaire couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh yeah, Cosette’s here too.”

“Oh!” Jehan exclaimed, their voice suddenly laced with the adoration it always had when he spoke to Cosette – she hadn’t been a part of their group long enough to convince Jehan that she was anything other than angelic and they were determined to treat her as such until her celestial status was disproven once and for all. “Cosette those cookies were delicious! Merci, mon cherie! So,” they continued their voice slowly morphing back to how it normally was when they spoke to Grantaire (joking and poised to become sarcastic at any given moment), “Javert wants to kill Bossuet, Cosette is an angel, Chetta managed to make Joly laugh so hard that Pepsi squirted out of his nose which was both hilarious and mildly concerning, and Courf saw Rel and Feuilly sparring for the first time and now wants to teach them both to dance.” None of it was even slightly surprising, but it made Grantaire smile, nonetheless. Life carried on and for that, he was completely grateful.

“Anything else?”

“Uh… Oh, yeah! Montparnasse wants to know when you’ll be back so that you two can rehearse the Squip song.”

“Um…” And there it was. I suppose it would have been too much to ask for the outside world to go on completely unaffected. As much as it pained him to admit it, Grantaire had responsibilities that wouldn’t wait for him to get better. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to rehearse any of the dancing for a while. I should be able to sing, though, so we’ll see.”

“Alright then, keep your secrets.”

Grantaire chuckled.

“Easy there, Frodo.”

“Well, see you tomorrow, I guess. Don’t damage yourself in the meantime, alright? Your plant truly is _not_ doing well.”

“Goodbye, Jehan.”

The moment the phone call ended, Grantaire felt strange. Since he had woken up, it was as though he was in a different dimension, one where he didn’t have work to catch up on or school to attend. But it was clear now that was not the case. It wasn’t that the world carried on without him, it was that the world carried on with him dragging behind in a hospital bed. Enjolras, Éponine and everyone else in the room with him, too. They were with him in hospital and not doing what they needed to be doing and he had no power over that and yet it somehow felt as though it was his fault? Argh! Why can’t things just be simple?

“Sir,” Grantaire began, not quite sure where he was going with his sentence and hoping that he would work it out along the way, “can I ask, why _are _you here exactly?” he asked. “Not that I’m not grateful you came,” he added hastily following a pointed glare from Enjolras, a sure sign that he was burgeoning on being rude.

He explained that the hospital required that under eighteens be signed out by an adult and that, given the situation, he hadn’t hesitated in volunteering and that he was primarily there to set that up in terms of admin. “Of course,” he added with a kind smile, “I had to see for myself that you’re okay. As for Cosette, well…”

“You’re my friends and you’re in the hospital! Of course, I came!” She seemed surprised, and possibly a tad offended, that he had even had to ask. Her frown broke quickly into a slightly sly smile, though. “Also,” she continued, “Most of my finances rely on the continuation of your relationship so I had to make sure that neither of you had died unexpectedly. That really wouldn’t help my bank account.

Grantaire chose to believe that it was a combination of both the painkillers being pumped into his system and the confused, almost affronted expression on Valjean’s face at what Cosette said that made him laugh so hard and so suddenly. Maybe also the utterly absurd but conversely entirely likely scenario that their friends still had bets running on their relationship.

His laughter rang out loudly and boisterously for almost thirty seconds, attracting some amused yet concerned looks from those around him. That was until his insides began stabbing him for daring to feel joy. He clutched at his sensitive middle and Éponine and Enjolras were at his bedhead within a single second, watching him and waiting for any sign that this was a genuine emergency rather than Grantaire completely forgetting that he can’t laugh.

“Ow, ow! That seriously hurt! _Jesus_!” Grantaire exclaimed with a scowl once the pain had died down enough to remove the hold it’d had on his throat.

“What is going on in here?” the nurse from earlier rushed back into the room and spoke with the same half-stern half-concerned tone he had heard many times from Valjean when he had been acting out because of some reason or another. They’d probably get on quite well, he reasoned at the back of his mind while the forefront of his brain tried to work out what had happened in the last minute. Pain killers are weird.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he settled on in the end, “I was just laughing.” It was a lame explanation and that fact showed clearly on the nurses face.

“Yes, well,” she said, huffing slightly and looking around the room at the five people gathered around the bed, “I think that’s probably enough for now. Contrary to popular opinion, when it comes to broken ribs and punctured lungs, laughter is _not _the best medicine.” Grantaire’s lungs agreed. “I think everyone should go now. You’ve only been awake for twenty minutes and you already look exhausted.”

Was that an insult? Grantaire couldn’t quite tell. It felt a little like an insult, but Enjolras wasn’t preparing to physically fight the nurse and so it couldn’t have been, at least, not an intentional one.

“Come on, everyone,” Valjean said brightly, breaking the small silence that had arisen through Grantaire’s confusion. “I’ll get us all something in the cantine.”

Cosette, Gavroche, Éponine and Enjolras began to follow Valjean out of the door, but the last was stopped before he could get more than two feet away from Grantaire’s bed.

“Not you, dear,” the nurse clarified, nudging him by the shoulder back towards the chair next to the bed. “The police want to get your statements now that you’re awake and I think it’s probably better for everyone if they don’t make you split up. Does that sound alright?”

That made Enjolras feel slightly guilty if he was being honest. His behaviour from the moment he had regained consciousness had been, how to put this kindly, _less than ideal. _Lying in his own bed in the trauma unit, he had demanded information from any member of staff that was unlucky enough to wander past. Even as his head wound was being cleaned and sewn up he had been asking about Grantaire and in hindsight, it must have been incredibly annoying. In the end, it took him refusing to talk to the police until he saw Grantaire awake and safe for the hospital to give in and take him to his boyfriend. Of course, Grantaire hadn't been awake then and wouldn't be for another twenty hours and so the police had been denied their answers yet again. And now the nurse was being so kind and patient and understanding and he felt so thoroughly undeserving of such treatment after what he had put the poor staff through for the last twenty-five and a bit hours. 

"Sure," Grantaire agreed with surprisingly little hesitation, "Uh, Apollo? You okay?"

Enjolras broke away from his self-critical inner monologue at the sound of Grantaire's voice and scrubbed a hand over his face, almost hoping that it alone could wipe away the bad feelings his reflection had brought. 

"Yeah, yeah," he said, smiling sleepily, "just tired. That chair isn’t nearly as comfortable is it looks."

Grantaire nodded, his brows furrowed slightly but didn't argue and instead mustered the most comforting smile he could in such circumstances.

"Okay," the nurse said, watching between the two curiously. "I’ll have someone fetch them."

***

The statement-giving wasn’t too bad. Don’t get me wrong, it was by no means a rollicking good time, but Enjolras held his hand throughout and the police were more understanding than the catalogue of American cop films Grantaire had seen had led him to believe.

Turns out, Enjolras had broken the bastard’s nose before being knocked down and Éponine had jumped in and dislocated both his shoulder and his knee and, with Gavroche’s help, tied him up with the garden hose. Grantaire made a mental note to go all out on their Christmas/Hanukkah presents next year.

It was strange. Having all of this information relayed to him in such a formal and detached way by the police officers, I mean. He had been there. He remembered it. He wasn’t sure he could ever forget it and, yet, the minutia of the events were so cloudy in hindsight that it made him unsure if any of what he thought he remembered was just some kind of horrifying nightmare brought on by the incredibly strong painkillers or his overactive imagination.

According to the officers, he had decided to plead not guilty to charges of assault and battery, child abuse and trespassing. He had a lawyer and everything. They said not to worry, though, because there was no way they wouldn’t get him for this. That he’d go away for ten years easy.

Grantaire tried to listen to what they were saying, he really did, but he was so tired. Physically and emotionally. In fact, he wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted a nap more in his life.

The police officers left at some point but Grantaire couldn’t for the life of him remember when. Maybe he’d nodded off and they’d taken the hint, or maybe Enjolras had seen how tired he was and told them, in that wonderfully Enjolras way he has, politely and in no uncertain terms to piss off. He was sure, were that the case, that Enjolras would have worded it more politely than he did in his tired mind.

All Grantaire knew, though, was that when he woke up briefly after god knows how long of sleeping, Enjolras was on the tiny hospital bed with him and had curled into his side. Seeing his boyfriend sleep so soundly spread a smile on his face and lulled him back to sleep himself, this time dreaming of a gorgeous blonde-haired boy with a furious snarl that could turn into a dazzling and utterly radiant smile at the drop of a hat and that, somehow, he had convinced this god to direct that smile at him.

It was the best Grantaire had slept in months.

***

The next day, as visiting hours began, Les Amis de l’ABC rushed Grantaire’s hospital ward to find him awake and sitting up in bed with a plate of toast and a wide smile as he laughed along with Enjolras.

“What the fuck happened?” Joly charged to his bedside looking equal parts worried and baffled at how his friend had managed to get so damaged since they had last seen each other on Wednesday. _Two days _and Grantaire was already covered in bruises! Enjolras, too! Enjolras had bruises and stitches and dried blood in his hair… his opening sentiment had been correct. _What the fuck happened?_

And so Grantaire told them. He waited until everyone was in the room and settled and the miscellaneous hubbub of the group had died down and then he told them what happened. All of it, as per Jehan’s request, he spared no detail.

Not wanting to hear the story again, Enjolras had tuned out and was grateful for the opportunity for a real distraction when Éponine suddenly tapped him on the shoulder in that confident and efficient business-like manner that she had mastered.

“Enjolras, can I speak to you for a second? Outside?”

“Sure.” He didn’t hesitate. It was good that Grantaire was okay with talking about what happened, but Enjolras wasn’t quite there. Not yet. Hearing it again… it was almost too much.

Once they were in the corridor with the door to the ward shut behind them, Éponine took his hand and tugged him towards a small row of empty chairs by a vending machine. She fiddled with her chipped nail polish and bounced her leg as though suddenly anxious.

Before Enjolras had a chance to ask her what was wrong, though, she spoke.

“I’m going to say this now because I’m tired and emotionally drained and because I don’t think I’ll have the courage to say it later.” Enjolras nodded and she cleared her throat of where it had become a little rough around the edges, tinged with the emotion that she so often kept under wraps.

“You have helped R in so many ways over the last few months.” She shook her head and corrected herself. “Nope, before that even. For the last… _twelve_ _years_ you have given him someone to look up to, someone to bring light to him when he’s in darkness. And it gets so dark sometimes, Enjolras, you have to know that,” she paused meaningfully and looked up from her hands at Enjolras to silently plead that he would understand. He understood. She looked back down at her hands, swallowing thickly as a tear or two leaked from her eyes. “So dark that he can’t see what’s in front of him… Gav and I… we can only do so much. We’re his family and we love him, and he loves us but there are things that we just can’t do to help him.

“I can be there when he has a panic attack and I can cuddle with him at night after he wakes up crying and Gav can buy chocolate for him on his way home from school on those bad days... We can pick up the pieces, but you can convince him that we can solve his problems together and ride off into the sunset if he wanted to… even if it is just for a while before everything goes wrong again. So, I just wanted to say,” she looked up from her hands once again and looked him dead in the eyes, thank you for taking care of my brother.” And with that, she pulled him into a hug.

When they entered the room once more, tear-stained and tired, the group took no notice, too rapt by Grantaire's dramatic tale to pay any attention to the way Éponine offered up what had been her chair to Enjolras, how he thanked her, quietly and sincerely, and took Grantaire's hand in his, bringing it to his lips, adoration and relief obvious on his face, and how Éponine settled next to Gavroche and slung her arm over his shoulders in a friendly yet protective gesture that very much said to the universe 'I won't let you hurt another one of my brothers.' No one noticed this, but all were aware of it more or less.

***

“But you’re okay now, right?” Joly asked a slightly worried smile on his face as he looked Grantaire up and down critically in his hospital bed once the storytelling was over.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good.” His smile widened and he leant against Bosset tiredly as though physically tired from the weight being lifted from his mind. “I’m really glad you’re okay, R. Our get-togethers would be so dull without Bahorel trying and failing to outdrink you every single time.

“Hey!” Bahorel shouted, sounding offended. “One day I will!”

“No, you won’t,” Jehan joined the conversation from the sidelines with a blunt verbal jab at Bahorel. If they had been fencing it would have been a touché to Jehan. Bahorel scoffed and made some other assorted offended noises for a few moments.

“I will!” he exclaimed finally, crossing his arms way too confidently for a man who once vomited in a wicker basket at Ikea after unsuccessfully trying to outdrink Grantaire. “Just to prove you all wrong!”

“Not for a while, bud,” Grantaire countered with a not-at-all-painful shrug. “All my internal organs still mostly work. The day my liver finally packs up I promise you will be the first to know.”

Bahorel’s scowl then was positively childish.

“Fuck all y’all. You aren’t my friends.”

“Yeah, we are,” Gavroche bumped his shoulder against Bahorel’s and was immediately shoved back, as was the norm between Gavroche and most of Les Amis at this point.

“Yeah, you are,” he acquiesced, tackling Gavroche into a bear hug. He sobered quickly, though as a thought seemed to occur to him. Patting Gavroche on the back, he released him and ran a hand through his – currently fading blue – hair before sighing. “And I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said after a moment or two of uncharacteristic silence. “Any of you,” the amount of sincerity in his voice all of a sudden was almost scary. Then, he turned to look at Grantaire specifically and the tears welling up in his eyes were clear to see. “I’m so happy you’re okay, R,” his voice cracked a little and he cleared his throat, wiping at his falling tears before turning to Enjolras and letting an easy grin break out on his face despite the tears. “And you, Enjolras,” he said, gesturing to Enjolras or, rather, his head. “That’s gonna be one bitchin’ scar soon.”

“Yes,” Grantaire agreed, nodding along. “It’s going to be _very_ sexy.”

Perhaps it was indeed the concussion, as Enjolras would blame later, that lead to the graceless snort that escaped him at Grantaire’s comment. After all, it truly was a spectacular sound. Like a V8 engine failing to start crossed with a water buffalo… making whatever noise it is that water buffalo make. Moo? Honk? Whatever onomatopoeia that goes with your standard farmyard pig? Perhaps it was closer to a pug with nasal passage issues… Either way, the sound made him flush a deep red and lean over into a slumped heap on Grantaire’s good shoulder to hide from the stunned, soon-to-be laughing faces of his friends.

Then the room erupted.

It wasn’t even that the noise itself was particularly funny – it was pretty funny, though. The raucous laughter was more a product of the high levels of emotion in the room and the surprise that their marble-faced (marble-assed as Grantaire had said on multiple occasions) leader had made such an ungodly snorting sound before blushing a stark crimson colour and hiding from the world in his boyfriend’s pillow. It was the abrupt change from the relieved, teary eyes of Bahorel’s speech and the tension and worry in the room to everyone just giddy with surprised laughter, so much that tears were beginning to fall for much happier reasons.

“Can I say something?” Marius asked almost nervously once the last of the laughter had died down.

No one in particular answered but pretty much everyone nodded and/or gestured for him to continue. Ah, the instinctive democracy of Les Amis de l’ABC.

“R,” Marius began, fiddling with one of his fraying jumper sleeves, “I know we’re not particularly close. Even though we’re friends we kind of hang out on opposite hemispheres of the group. I wax poetry about Cosette and argue with Enjolras not just to annoy him but because I genuinely disagree with a lot of what he says and you can’t stand to hear me talking about my love life and I assume you go out drinking and… fighting? with Bahorel and Feuilly? Like, I genuinely have no idea what you do…” his ramble trailed off then as he seemed to lose track of where he was going. Grantaire was not particularly surprised by this but his eyebrows did raise a tad at the jumbled words.

“Gee, thanks,” the sarcasm dripped from his voice without any real venom, but Marius shook his head, nevertheless.

“No, that’s not what I mean. What I’m getting at is… R, I am so sorry that you’ve had to deal with that bastard for so long. And I know that you got help from Éponine, Jehan and Enjolras, but I am also so, so sorry if you ever felt like you couldn’t come to every single one of us for help. Like you couldn’t come to me. Maybe, if I’d seen what was going on, we could have helped sooner... I really am sorry, R.” He finished his monologue and looked at Grantaire sincerely and it struck him how right Marius had been. This might’ve been the first time he’d genuinely looked Marius in the eyes.

To be completely honest, Grantaire was dumbstruck. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he and Marius were friends, but… well, it’s like he said: they weren’t close. Marius was the straight-A student that Valjean very much approved of his daughter dating and who frequently made donations to charity and Grantaire, well, he smokes and drinks and uses vulgar language, causes problems when he’s in a bad mood and is closer to being on the receiving end of those charitable donations. But they were friends and it touched Grantaire that Marius would want to help him out of anything other than the principal of the matter.

“Thank you, Marius,” he said finally, still slightly stunned. “That means a lot. And I’m not being even slightly sarcastic this time,” he added hastily. “Thank you. But there was nothing you could have done,” he shook his head and looked down at his hands. “What happened needed to happen one way or another. He needed to be arrested, I needed to get away from him… Plus, if we had dealt with it sooner, I may never have punched Enjolras in the face that day. Every cloud and all that.” Grantaire was saying all of this just as much for his own benefit than Marius’s. There had to be a silver lining, he needed there to be one. Grantaire completely blamed his newfound need for optimism in his life on Enjolras.

“Still, R,” Feuilly cut in, his voice sincere in a way that made it seem like he was pleading with Grantaire to agree, “this is a big deal. No matter what good came out of it, it still _sucks_ that you went through it all and had to deal with so much on your own.” He paused and looked around the room at the rest of Les Amis. After a moment, he smiled. “We’re _so_ _proud_ of you for getting through it and if there is anything at all we can do, we’re all here to help.”

An unexpected tear trickled down Grantaire’s cheek. His jaw was noticeably stubbly from not being shaven for two days and it scraped on his hand as he wiped the tear away hastily and it somehow made everything, what had happened and the passage of time he had been asleep for, very real indeed. Where had all of these emotions come from all of a sudden?! He blamed Marius. The surprisingly poetic bastard.

“Well,” he began, pausing to clear his throat and his head a little, “I need help moving the very last of my stuff out of my old house. There isn’t too much stuff but I can’t exactly do any heavy lifting right now so…” he trailed off, suddenly unsure of himself. Sharing so many feelings with Éponine and Jehan was one thing, but everyone? Including Gavroche who he had tried so hard to be strong for when his parents left… that was a whole other beast entirely. And, yet, as unsure as he was, he was not afraid. These are his friends. Always have been. Always will be. “Plus,” he continued, swallowing the lump in his throat, “I don’t… I don’t think I can go back there alone.” Hoping that would be enough to get his point across, he looked around the room and saw no pity in the faces of his friends. Sympathy and regret and, above all, kindness, but no pity.

“Sure,” Courfeyrac said with his signature easy grin, throwing an arm around Jehan. “We’re there whenever. Say… Sunday afternoon?”

“Sounds great.”

And once again the general hubbub of friends breaking off into factions to talk amongst themselves filled the room and Grantaire found himself remarkably content despite recent events. As though, and no matter how cheesy it may sound, a weight had been lifted off his chest. For months, years, even, he had been walking around with this horrible secret – even though it wasn’t all that secret – on his mind, living his day to day life at school and with his friends ignoring the massive part of him that was terrified to go home, that was terrified to go on. He hadn’t been alone before, he knew that, but now, surrounded by his friends, in a hospital or not, he realised how isolated he had felt. It was almost like that feeling you would get when a tooth fell out as a kid. There would be this gap that you’d never seen before and now that you felt it, it made everything else feel completely different. It was like that, but the exact opposite. Grantaire had never acknowledged the hollow feeling in his chest that he’d had every day as he lived his life in the shadow of his fear of his father, but once that feeling was gone, the world was different and not at all in a bad way. He was surrounded by his friends and he wasn’t alone and that felt so, so good.

Suddenly, Grantaire was broken out of his realisation by the sound of Joly having one.

“Wait, why can’t you do any heavy lifting? I thought it was just bruising…”

Les Amis all exchanged looks, wordlessly asking one another who would be the one to tell him. Bossuet, after a moment or two, finally sighed and nudged Musichetta gently with his elbow. So, it would be her job. Musichetta, who had so far been doing a very good job of hiding Grantaire’s chart from her boyfriend, reluctantly leaned over and whispered in his ear. The shrill noise Joly made next was truly ear-splitting.

“Punctured _what now_????!!!!”

***

¹The room, though containing only Grantaire and Enjolras and now the nurse, was technically a ward rather than a single room, but it seemed that Grantaire had managed to get lucky in terms of other people not getting injured as no one else was inhabiting the beds. For this, Grantaire was grateful. I mean, what even is the social protocol in a hospital ward? Do you make small talk or just ignore each other’s existence? Who knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah... I hope that wasn't too dreary or dismal. I wanted to leave this chapter off at a good place (relatively speaking) within the story as I am not going to be uploading again until the new year. I'm aiming for 6th of January right now and I think it's almost certain that I will be able to meet that deadline (that is what I said about my weekly deadlines though...). Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year! See you in January!


	20. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire is discharged from the hospital and enlists the help of Montparnasse to help him move some stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again! Late! I know and I'm sorry! This chapter really got away from me! I'll explain more at the end, so for now...
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> CW: IMPLIED CHILD ABUSE, INJURY, GRIEF, REFERENCED DEATH.

By the time he was discharged from the hospital, a day later than he had been promised, Grantaire had begun to get used to the aches and pains that came customary with injuries such as his. He couldn’t breathe in too much air at once because I made his chest feel like it was full of needles, his arm was still bound in plaster and there was no sign that it would be coming off any time soon, and the bruises all over his body were beginning to turn an unpleasant shade of greeny-brown. Apparently, this disgusting colour was a good sign that he was healing, but the artist in him just loathed to see such an awful colour all over his body – as soon as he got home he was planning on painting over them all in every colour of the rainbow that wasn’t disgusting-swampy-brown-green. Granted, he was glad that the bruised patches weren’t nearly as painful to the touch as they had been when he had first woken up, but bruises are bruises and all bruises suck.

The day of his discharge, Valjean, Éponine and Gavroche all turned up to the hospital at eleven in the morning, despite it being a Monday (meaning that the rest of Les Amis hadn’t been able to help him move his stuff on Sunday given that he was still stuck in the hospital) and all three of them having to be at school. On one hand, Grantaire was rather disappointed that Enjolras hadn’t shown up too, but, on the other, he knew he had a good reason. You see, even the most absentee of semi-moral parents will pay at least a little bit of attention when told that their child is involved with a police investigation and is currently in the hospital. Enjolras had thought that conversations with his parents couldn’t get any more awkward than when he came out to his mother – or really any Sunday dinner where the family had been fully assembled with absolutely nothing to talk about over the roast lamb or beef or chicken or whatever they’d had delivered that week – but evidently he was wrong. The phone call from the hospital and subsequent one from the police seemed to have been a sort of wakeup call for the parents and so, as Grantaire was being released from the hospital, Enjolras was busy telling his parents just exactly how much they had missed due to their indifference over their son’s life.

If you absolutely must know, the very moment Grantaire stepped out of the front door of the hospital, Enjolras had just got to the point in his story in which he was explaining that, yes, he did, indeed, have a boyfriend. So, it was going well.

Back at the car, Grantaire had got himself situated in the back, leaning awkwardly against the door in an effort not to hunch over and make his lungs sear in pain. That left approximately no space for Gavroche to sit in and so he decided that Grantaire would just have to deal with him sitting on half on his legs. “Gav!” “What? It’s three seats, R, I’m sure you can manage with just two.”

With the boys in the back, that left Éponine to be in the passenger seat. Valjean, rather sensibly, took this to mean that she was in charge. Or maybe it was just that she’s usually in charge. That would also make sense. “Would you like to go straight back to your house?” he asked, turning to his left to face her with a kind smile as she buckled herself in. “Or, would you prefer to get some food? It’s totally up to you.” Éponine thought for a moment and made a decision. Valjean, being he gracious and naturally caring man that he was, had insisted on holding every door open for the three to walk through as they made their way out of the hospital. It genuinely baffled each of them how one person could be so nice with no ulterior motive at all and yet each and every one of them trusted him implicitly. Éponine, with all of her paranoia and mistrustfulness of everyone, trusted him to walk behind them and start the car and drive away – completely with the power to creep up behind them and stab them all or crash the car into a tree and kill them should he like (though he absolutely wouldn’t). She trusted him. It was with this trust in Valjean, and his constant promise not to judge her, that she resolved to finally say what she felt she must.

“Sir?” she began carefully, testing the waters of conversation with trepidation and an almost reluctant element to her voice that Grantaire and Gavroche had only heard a handful of times between them; their interests were piqued.

“Yes?” Valjean prompted cheerfully when her question didn’t immediately go any further.

Éponine sighed, psyching herself up in a way, just trying to build up the courage. Asking for help had never been her forte. “I would like to ask for a pretty big favour. It’s actually massive and you have every right to say no, but, before you do, I would like to have the chance to explain myself.”

“Go ahead, Éponine.”

She took a glance over her shoulder to find her boys nodding at her encouragingly, though slightly confused themselves. 

“First,” she shot a smile to the boys before turning back to the front, “you have to understand that Grantaire is not just my best friend. We grew up together. Whenever either of us has a problem, we go to each other first before _anyone_ because we know that we will always be there for each other and will help in any way we can. What I’m saying is: Grantaire is my brother. And now, when I go back to my house, I have to look at the patch of grass where my brother was being beaten to a pulp by his own father. I have to see the paving slabs that have the dried blood of one of my best friends on it. I have to think about how Gav had to hold that _prick _down while I tied him up. _My baby brother. _He had to use all of his weight against him and…” she trailed off, for once her emotions were getting the best of her and she was rapidly derailing towards incoherent ranting.

She took a deep breath and continued.

“My point is,” her voice measured and deliberate in every word, “I can’t go back to that house and I can’t in good conscience ever let either of my brothers _near _there again. You know I hate asking for help. I don’t like to admit when I can’t do something on my own, I know that. But I’ll admit it, I need help. We all do. So, and again you have every right to refuse,” she paused briefly to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat, “Can we stay with you for a little while? Just until we find somewhere that we can afford close enough to the school. We have money. We’ll even pay rent if you want reimbursement—”

Now, Jean Valjean was not particularly one for interrupting people while they were speaking. After all, it is frightfully bad manners and symptomatic of a lack of respect and Valjean had made it a point throughout his life to respect as many people as possible. But he could not listen to Éponine ramble self-consciously in her desperation for help one second longer.

“There’ll be no need for that,” he took his eyes off the road briefly to smile warmly at her and into the rearview mirror at where the two boys were sitting in the back watching the conversation unfold. “Éponine, you and your family are welcome to stay with me and mine for as long as you need. No rent required.” He pulled off the parkway and onto a slip road that advertised a garden centre and tearoom half a mile away. There was silence in the car until after Valjean managed to get parked just outside the tearoom. “You know,” he said after a few moments, “I’m very glad you asked me for help. I can’t imagine how difficult all of this has been for you and I know I’m just your headteacher and it might not mean much, but I am proud of you. Asking for help is difficult and, frankly, I am proud to be someone that you feel comfortable going to for help. Now, how about we get some food. I’m sure you’ll want something other than hospital food now, R!”

To say that Grantaire eagerly agreed would have quite possibly been the understatement of the century – the hospital food had been godawful and he was so tired of living on Mars bars and Lucozade from the vending machine in the hallway. Even with his extensive list of injuries, he was out of the car and speed walking the best he could towards the painted chalkboard that invited them into the tearooms with the promise of a reasonably priced cream tea.

The atmosphere in the tearoom was nice if a little… how should one put this… doily-orientated. You know what I mean. Like it was decorated forty years ago by a grandmother with a lace hoarding problem and an obsession with cat-based ceramics. They had good scones, though, so Grantaire wasn’t complaining.

“I want you to know, R,” Valjean said, once they had managed to settle themselves onto a table that Éponine deemed suitable¹, “that were it up to me, I would adopt you all and take you home with me permanently.” By the time Valjean took a pause to have a sip of his tea, Grantaire wasn’t sure his eyebrows could be raised any higher. After all, it was a kind of weird thing just to say casually over a cup of tea and he was glad that Éponine and Gavroche were over at the counter taking their time deciding on what cakes they wanted – Gavroche was caught between chocolate roulade and millionaire’s shortbread. “I’m not supposed to have favourites,” Valjean went on, resting his teacup back on its saucer, “but I really do care about you all so much and I hate to see you going through hardships.”

How the hell was Grantaire supposed to respond to that? “Um… thank you?” was what he went with, in the end. Didn’t Valjean just say that he would want to adopt him? Adopt all of them? Who just says that out of the blue? Well, Jean Valjean apparently.

“I couldn’t, though.”

“Oh.”

“Madame Magloire would fight me tooth and nail for custody of you and I’m not ready to have a colleague hate me that much.” Apparently one possibly slightly badly judged joke was all it took for all of the tension to drain from that conversation.

“Why does Madame Magloire hate you?” Gavroche and his chocolate roulade came bounding back up to the table, characteristically inquisitive. “Because I’m pretty sure she hates everyone but R.”

“Madame Magloire does not hate _everyone,” _being stern had never suited Valjean and it suited him even less when his eyes were laughing heartily. “She, like me, even though neither of us should do, has favourites.”

“_Favourite_,” Éponine cut in, stressing the end of the word, joining them at the table with a plate of millionaire’s shortbread in hand, “We all know she only has one and it’s obviously R!”

“Shut up,” Grantaire shoved her playfully as she took her place in the corner. He was well aware that he was Madame Magloire’s favourite; she’d told him any number of times when he was being too hard on his work. Éponine didn’t have to know about that, of course.

***

Once they finished up their food and piled unceremoniously back into the car, Valjean didn’t start up the engine right away. “Do you want to go straight home or do you want to make any stops along the way?” The implications were clear. _‘Do you need to pick some stuff up from your house?’ _was what he meant. Even from where he was sitting, slumped over in the back of the car as he was, he could see Éponine curl in on herself. Literally. At the mere mention of having to go back to that house, her shoulders slumped and her head ducked and, if she were in a position to do so (i.e. not in a vehicle that would begin moving at any second), she would have pulled her knees up to her chest. Well, Grantaire was not having _that. _

Fuck it.

“Yeah, uh, can we stop at my old house? There’s some stuff I need.”

Silence filled the car for a few beats. No one had expected that, hell, Grantaire even hadn’t been exactly sure what he was going to say.

“Your dad’s house?” Valjean asked, as though he was going to suddenly declare that he had been joking and that they didn’t really have to go to that house. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been joking. He hadn’t been lying either for that matter. There really was stuff at his old house that he needed. Now, strictly speaking, he didn’t need any of that stuff immediately, but it gave Éponine an excuse to avoid an uncomfortable question and, what can he say? Grantaire is the best best-friend that she could ever ask for.

No one said a word beyond the affirmation from Grantaire. Even Gavroche, with his motormouth to rival the rest of Les Amis combined, didn’t feel like there was anything good to say as they drove that familiar route.

On the way, despite the relative shortness of the journey, Éponine fell asleep. It was only then that it really occurred to Grantaire just how hard all of this must’ve been on her, Gavroche too. They had both seemed to have looked more and more tired every time they had visited him. He knew that Gavroche hadn’t been sleeping properly, Éponine had fretted about it enough for even Grantaire’s tired and pain med-dosed brain to forget about it. Evidently, though, she had left out the part where she had been just as bad as him, if not worse.

“Do you want us to come in with you, R?” Valjean asked kindly, although it was entirely obvious to Grantaire that neither he nor Gavroche had any desire, beyond wanting to help, to enter the house. Grantaire couldn’t blame him, really. He was only going in for a favour for Éponine and to grab some stuff. Otherwise, he wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible.

Oh.

Right.

In.

That was going to be a slight problem, he realised looking distastefully down at the pot on his arm. That was never going to fit through the tiny bathroom window!

“R?” Valjean prompted. Oh, yeah, communication would probably be a good idea.

“Uh, nope. I’m good. I have to go there first, though,” he gestured in the general direction of Montparnasse’s house and Valjean didn’t ask any more questions.

It felt weird going up to Montparnasse’s front door. For the longest time, they had only seen each other at rehearsal and, before that, over their shared fence. Even when he’d had parties, Grantaire had taken to shimmying through the broken part of said fence to attend rather than walking up the drive and knocking on the door like a normal person. It occurred to him that perhaps this was genuinely the first time that he had knocked on Montparnasse’s front door.

Weird.

He rang the bell.

Nothing happened.

He rang it again.

Nothing happened yet again. Maybe Montparnasse was at rehearsal?

Just for the sake of posterity if nothing else, Grantaire rang the doorbell a third time and, this time, a loud groan emanated from somewhere inside before Montparnasse’s irritated voice rang out from just the other side of the door.

“If it’s those Jehovah’s Witnesses that I’ve seen going around, I’m a raging degenerate, queer whore and there’s no stopping my descent into hell!”

“Well, I’d hope not. I need a friend in the pit after all!” Grantaire called back with a smile on his face and the door flung open so hard that he was worried it might fly off its hinges. It didn’t. Just about.

Suddenly he had an arm-full – it was probably technically two arms-full but, considering Grantaire only had one to work with, that is what we’re going with – of a very relieved Montparnasse.

It was exceedingly obvious to everyone who knew him that Montparnasse wasn’t particularly one for casual acts of physical intimacy. By that, I don’t mean casual sex, though. He was very much into that, but I digress. Other than the more than occasional hook-up, Montparnasse never was really into physical affection. Nothing to it, really; he just wasn’t a tactile person.

And, yet, at the sight of Grantaire standing outside his front door relatively unscathed – if you’re willing to look over a significant portion of the injuries that were just beginning to heal, and he was. Sue him. He was an optimist at heart.

“I think you’ve been hanging out with Jehan and Courf too much,” Grantaire croaked, finally having been released from Montparnasse’s vice-like grip and trying his very best to ignore the fact that tight hugs and damaged insides don’t really mesh well. Perhaps it was a bit childish for Montparnasse to stick his tongue out at Grantaire but who cares, it saved him having to use his voice which he wasn’t entirely sure would work properly after all of the worry he’d been through for the past few days. As did the gesture that clearly said, ‘Come in, old friend, old buddy, old pal!’ that beckoned Grantaire inside a moment later.

It wasn’t that Grantaire had thought that the state of Montparnasse’s house after a party was the way that it was all of the time, with littered and stained and smelling of a cacophony of weed and sweat and bad decisions² but it was exceedingly odd seeing it any other way.

The house wasn’t exactly a palace, don’t get me wrong. It was a little run down at the edges where Montparnasse hadn’t done enough layers when he was repainting the walls and so the colour was patchy and inconsistent and the corners of the counters and tables were scraped and dented where drunk people had run into them (presumably with considerable force given the depth of some of the dents), but, overall, the house was cleaner than he’d thought it’d be. So, that was something.

The thing that surprised him the most actually, was the smell. One could be forgiven for assuming that the party smell – the aforementioned scent of weed, sweat and bad decisions – lingered around once all of the stoned, sweaty and regretful people left. Surprisingly, though, the house didn’t smell like that at all. In fact, it kind of smelt like…

“Really, Parnasse? Vanilla?” Grantaire asked incredulously. Montparnasse simply shrugged and gestured towards the oven.

“Cookies,” he said, as though Grantaire wasn’t having to entirely reevaluate everything he thought he knew about his friend. “Anyway,” he continued, thoroughly unaware of Grantaire’s mini-crisis over the oven of cookies and how clean everything looked, “What is it you need me to do? Because I get that I seem like a shady dude but I’m really not well-connected enough to have anyone killed.”

“What?” Grantaire came back to reality finally and was momentarily confused before he could respond in any meaningful way and Montparnasse must’ve misinterpreted this confusion slightly.

“Yeah, dude. I’m just a small-time weed dealer. The most well-connected criminal I know is Éponine’s dad and he’s just poof! Vanished off the face of the earth!”

“Actually—” Grantaire began to explain but Montparnasse cut him off, shaking his head.

“Nope,” he said, “Don’t tell me. I’d rather just believe that they’ve both disappeared off the face of the earth if I’m honest.”

“Fair enough, but that’s not what I was going to ask you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I was just gonna ask if you would help me break into my dad’s house to get some stuff.”

“Oh.” He paused for a second and very briefly Grantaire thought that he might refuse to help him. Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Yeah, sure. Rehearsal’s at one so I should be good until then. Let’s a-go.”

“Easy there, Mario.” Grantaire had missed their quick and easy banter. Sure, they saw each other three times a week at school for rehearsal, but that wasn’t the same as their over-the-fence chats from years before. Montparnasse was one of his oldest friends and yet they hardly saw each other and, though it almost pained him to admit to something so sappy – especially regarding Montparnasse – he had missed the bastard.

“Well then, hurry up Luigi!” he shouted over his shoulder back at Grantaire, who reluctantly began to follow after him, dragging his fate indignantly after being compared to the less famous brother of an animated plumber. It wasn’t quite the kind of insult that he had been expecting that day if he had been expecting any, and, yet, he was strangely offended.

“Why am I Luigi?” he muttered before hastily adding louder, “And don’t say ‘green’.”

“Green.” Montparnasse sped up then, sprinting into his back garden and skirting around the pool in a way that Grantaire’s injured self couldn’t even attempt to.

“You little shit. You know, if these pain meds didn’t make it highly likely that I would run into a door or some shit, you would be on your ass so fast!” he shouted after him, smiling as he joined his friend outside.

Yeah, he had missed this.

From then on, aside from Montparnasse insisting that it was just as efficient for him to hop over the fence than walk ten metres into the front-drive and getting stuck on top said fence for about five minutes until Grantaire managed to shake it enough for him to fall off on the right side, it was relatively easy getting into the house. The bathroom window was, as ever, slightly ajar and Montparnasse found it easy, being the skinny guy that he was, to weasel through the gap.

If Montparnasse’s house had smelt like vanilla, this house smelled like… well, whatever the exact opposite of vanilla is. Racoon corpse? Probably racoon corpse. Having been inhabited by two people with absolutely no inclination for caring for themselves or their surroundings, at least not while at home, for so many years, the house had never smelled great. Usually, the stink had been limited to stale beer and sweaty teenage boy who isn’t aware that washing bedsheets is a thing, but, since Grantaire had left all those months ago, the smell had morphed into something that made him wish he was wearing one of those plague doctor masks with herbs in the nose.

_Good_, he thought ruefully as he stepped into the hallway and took in a lungful of the stench, _He deserves to rot in his own stink._

“Okay,” Montparnasse didn’t try to hide the way that his nose scrunched in disgust at the smell, “What do you need because I’d like to get away from this biohazard ASAP.”

“Uh…” Grantaire hesitated momentarily, “No questions asked, right?”

“Obviously.”

“I need you to get me a switchblade – there should be one in the cutlery drawer – my rucksack from behind the old sofa—”

“The broken one?”

“Yeah. And there is one crate of my art stuff left in my room. I have some stuff that I need to get myself, so I’ll meet you at the car in like five minutes, okay?” 

And they went their separate ways, on their own little missions with absolutely no questions asked. It was as though, though they had drifted apart somewhat, they were falling right back into their friendship where they had left off and for that Grantaire was eternally grateful. While everything seemed to be changing around him, he was so glad that some things stayed exactly the same.

***

If Grantaire was right, he had at least two minutes alone in his room until Montparnasse came, having already found the knife and the rucksack, barging in for his art stuff. Right, down to business.

Climbing onto the disgustingly dirty mattress, he stood on the bed and pulled at the top of the large bookcase. Just like when the bowling ball fell onto Éponine, the bookcase came crashing down. It was strange to think, really, of how only months before the sight of those empty shelves lying face down on the floor would have worried him so much. He would have been worried about his father hearing the loud bang and come barging into his room with fury in his beady little eyes and he would have been worried about all of his things underneath it. There was nothing underneath what was now little more than a pile of rubble, though. All of Grantaire’s things had been taken off the shelves months before during their little escapade of breaking and everything in late November. The snow globe that Jehan bought him from that one time they skipped school to go to the seaside and write angsty sonnets about the waves – they got in so much trouble with their parents but the poetry was pretty good so Grantaire classed it as a win nevertheless – and the painted fan Feuilly had given him four Birthdays ago³ were both at Éponine’s house, bubble wrapped in one of his boxes of stuff that he never really unpacked. The books had been cleared away and sorted into piles of books to be donated to charity shops, books that one of his friend’s would probably like, and books that he was going to keep. The final pile had then been further sorted, well, distributed is probably more accurate, between Enjolras, Jehan and Bahorel who had all volunteered some storage for the stuff that they couldn’t fit at Éponine’s. After all of that disappeared from the shelves, there remained only one thing left and that travelled with Grantaire almost everywhere.

Bubble wrapped at the bottom of his school bag was his favourite photo of all of Les Amis. It was a relatively recent shot, taken at The Musain barely a month before he and Enjolras had got together. They were all smiling and laughing with each other. Marius and Cosette were leaning into each other, just as lovey-dovey as usual despite the newness of their relationship, Musichetta in the background in her apron, very clearly looking at Joly and Bossuet rather than the camera, Grantaire was not – for once – staring at Enjolras and was instead locked in two-way arm wrestling match with Éponine and Bahorel that Gavroche was losing his mind over, and Enjolras was caught up in a heated debate with Combeferre and Feuilly, paying no mind whatsoever to the fact that Courfeyrac had climbed onto one of the tables on the opposite side of the café with his new camera. The only one who had noticed Courfeyrac and his camera was, unsurprisingly, Jehan. They were staring just over the eye of the camera, blatantly eyeing up Courfeyrac.

Ah, yes. The simpler times in which Jehan and Courfeyrac were blatantly pining over each other and yet they were both thoroughly unaware of it happening.

And if it had been there, that treasured memory would have been crushed underneath a cheap, Ikea bookshelf.

Grantaire’s rather philosophical train of thought was cut off abruptly by a nasty realisation. He sighed. _Well, _he thought, _might as well get this over with._

His good fist connected with the patch of wall that had been concealed by the shelves only moments before and was grateful for the years of untreated water damage that the old house had. It took barely a second for him to reach around for what he needed.

An axe.

I won’t bore you with the details. After all, Grantaire was in a room that contains almost all of his worst memories and had a large axe; you can probably guess what he did.

By the time Montparnasse arrived in the room to collect the crate of art stuff, the smallest wall was a mess of holes and rubble was scattered around haphazardly. Emphasis on the _hazard _because he nearly tripped over a bit on his way in. the room was in shambles and Grantaire was in the middle of it all, hunched over one of the larger holes in the wall.

“R? You okay there, dude?”

It took Grantaire a moment to respond and by the time he did Montparnasse had shifted himself to better see what he was looking at.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” And, surprisingly, considering the carnage around him, he sounded fine, but he hadn’t yet looked away from the old teddy bear and large volume in front of him. They were nestled in a scraped out little hovel in the plaster of the wall and slightly dusty but otherwise looked just like they had when he had watched his aunt seal them in there secretly years ago. “Have you got the stuff?” he asked Montparnasse after a few moments, finally taking his eyes off them and looking back at his friend who was, admittedly, looking a little spooked by what he saw.

“Uh, is this the crate?” he gestured to the lone box in the opposite corner of the room, just barely tucked out of the way of the fallen bookshelf. A small nod from Grantaire, who was suddenly feeling very tired indeed now that the adrenaline had worn off somewhat, and they were ready to go.

Halfway to the car, though, Grantaire stalled in the middle of the front garden.

“R? You good?”

“I’m sorry, there’s some stuff I have to get.” And with that, he rushed back into the house. Montparnasse watched after him with a furrowed brow, not able to offer Éponine an explanation when she came to see what the holdup was.

In the end, she found Grantaire leaning against the door frame of the hall cupboard, staring into it. She said nothing as she approached, but he spoke, nevertheless.

“You know,” he said, bitterness and sorrow laced through his voice in equal measure, “This is the longest the door has been open since she died.” A choke escaped his throat and Éponine brought him into a tight hug. “I really miss her, Ponine.”

“I know. She was a really good aunt,” she pulled away to look him seriously in the face, “But you have to let her go eventually. And we can’t take all of this stuff with us.”

“I can’t leave it here. I can’t leave _her _here…”

“No, and we won’t. You take three things you want to keep of hers and then we can take the rest to the next meeting and sort through it together and find the stuff we can donate.” Grantaire didn’t look entirely taken with the idea, but she persisted. “Only what you’re okay with getting rid of. Okay, R?” He nodded stiffly.

“She left me some stuff. In the wall. Do you want to see what’s inside?”

Éponine had been vaguely aware that there had been some minor renovations years and years before at Grantaire’s house that had something to do with his aunt, but, at the time, she had been no older than eight and hadn’t cared enough to ask. Now, to think that the kind and world-wise woman that had shown up to collect Grantaire from school even more than his own mother had while she was still around had sealed stuff into the walls during renovations like a real version of the pirates they would pretend to be when they were kids was kind of blowing her mind. She nodded and they each grabbed a box from the cupboard and made their way to the car where they filled Valjean, Montparnasse and Gavroche in on their plan for the cupboard. Soon the car was filled to the brim by his aunt’s stuff and Éponine was watching him expectantly.

“So,” she prompted, “what did she leave you?” Her brows furrowed as she followed Grantaire’s pointing finger to the old teddy bear and substantial volume in the back seat. “That’s it?” she asked a tad incredulous. “An old stuffed toy and… what even is that?”

“A photo album.”

Oh. She finally understood. _The _photo album.

When they were kids, Grantaire’s aunt babysat them both more times than they could count at the time and she had a certain flair for photography. There was barely a time she spent with the woman that there wasn’t the clacking sound of a camera capturing photos around them. They had asked her a few times about what she planned to do with the photos and every time she said that she would put them in a big album one day so that they could all look back on them together when they were older.

Then she died.

She died and Éponine had assumed that she’d never had the chance to put it together. Apparently, she had been mistaken.

“R…” she began, not taking her eyes off the album as though she were afraid it would melt into the seats of the car never to be seen again. Clearing her throat, Éponine shifted her mind to the sizable bear next to the book. “And the bear?”

Grantaire didn’t say anything right away, merely smiling slightly, the expression not entirely happy but not quite what you could call sad either.

“Parnasse?” he called after a moment or two, hearing that he and Gavroche were on their way out of the house.

“Yeah, boss?”

“You got that knife?”

The folded-up switchblade was tossed towards Grantaire without a thought for how he would be able to catch it. Luckily for Grantaire’s face, which he thought was bruised enough already, Éponine caught it in mid-air and sent a glare towards Montparnasse4, a clear warning about the consequences of throwing knives around. Seriously, Parnasse, use your head.

Before any of them could ask what he was planning on using the knife for, Grantaire was slicing up the stitching that ran up the back of the teddy bear. They watched with slight horror as he mutilated the stuffed toy with no visible remorse or hesitation.

No stuffing flew out of the bear, though, which stuck Éponine as odd until she realised why.

There was no stuffing in the bear.

Only money.

In fact, an astounding amount of money.

Grantaire didn’t seem surprised, though. Not at first, that is. Aside from the money, there was an envelope stuffed into the bear and, in the envelope, a letter in handwriting that Grantaire had almost forgotten.

_Dear little R (unless you’ve had a growth spurt which I doubt because we have the same genes and I haven’t grown since I was a teenager)_

_Obviously, I don’t know how old you are when you’re reading this. A large part of me hopes that you are middle-aged and greying and that we have had all of the time in the world to be a real family because if you’re reading this, I’m dead. I’ve always wanted to say that. Which, I’ll admit is a little weird, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I suspect you’ll be reading this quite soon and, in that case, I’m sorry for leaving you with your father. He is no father and no brother, and you deserve so much better. _

_I don’t even know what I was planning on writing in this. Right now, when I’m writing this, you are fourteen years old and things have been quite hard on you recently. You’re getting through it, though, and I am so proud of you. I want you to have a good life, R, and I am so proud of you for carrying on. _

_I want only the best for you, R. I want you to keep painting because I have seen how happy it makes you and you should never give it up. I want you to get over yourself (or get over him, but we both know that’s not likely to happen any time soon) and ask Enjolras out. And, yes, of course, I know his name. The fact that you thought even for a moment that you could hide his name from me is, frankly, insulting. _ _You should also probably go to university or something like that. That seems like the kind of thing I should encourage you to do as your extremely responsible, grown-up aunt._

_Oh shit, I’m running out of paper. I should probably say goodbye, but I really don’t want to! I love you, R. Please, just do one thing for me, okay? Please, try not to forget me. I really would like to be remembered. Even if it’s just for being your weird aunt who set you up a trust fund that one time._

_ Goodbye, R. I love you and don’t let the bastards get you down! (that one in particular!)_

_PS: Tell Ép that I love her too and that I hope she gets herself and that little baby brother of hers away from those people who call themselves her parents. Everyone deserves better than them. Especially her. Okay? _

_PPS: In case you’ve forgotten (and I really don’t want you to forget) I love you so much and I’m sorry I’m leaving you. I love you._

By the time he had finished reading the letter, the paper was lightly tear-stained and Grantaire couldn't pay attention to the minutia of the letter for another second. He could barely even stand and was having to lean against Éponine for support. Truth be told, he was stopping her from falling over, too. Like one of those bridges made without any cement that is held up only by the force coming from either end, they held each other up and, with Gavroche eagerly volunteering to take the front seat, they kept each other up all the way to their new home.

***

¹Éponine had always been what you could probably call “weird” about being in cafés and restaurants and just public buildings in general, actually. It can range from small things like not wanting to sit anywhere facing away from the exit to refusing to move from sitting in the back corner with her back against two walls until they decide to leave. She has always assumed that this paranoia stemmed from her upbringing surrounded by completely untrustable people like her parents but Jehan suspected that it stemmed more so from her need to protect people. Grantaire, Gavroche, you name it. Éponine has always been protecting someone and to do that she has to see everything that is going on around her from a decent vantage point. Either way, to Éponine, corner tables are the holy grail.

²Incidentally, _‘Weed, Sweat and Bad Decisions’ _was what Montparnasse would call his autobiography should he ever be inclined to write one.

³Feuilly had gone through a period of a few months of having literally no money one year. He was between jobs and between foster parents and yet he was adamant that he wasn’t going to miss getting any of them gifts for their birthdays. So, in the end, he made fans for them all. Over spare lunchtimes, he would slave away in the art room making these beautifully watercoloured things for his friends. Grantaire’s fan, in particular, is a gorgeous rendition of Achilles and Patroclus – definitely not Enjolras and Grantaire, nope – leaning against each other as they watch the sunset. At the time Enjolras hadn’t connected the dots between himself and Achilles and so had spent a few weeks grumpily assuming that the blonde in the image leaning against someone who very much looked like Grantaire was someone that Grantaire had a crush on – well, he wasn’t wrong, was he? – and sulked about it. He had been even more irritable than normal but perhaps that’s a story for another time.

4When offered payment by Valjean for services rendered, Montparnasse initially refused, he was just helping out a friend. Then, though, Grantaire offered him his pick of anything from the kitchen and he just leapt at the chance. He disappeared for a minute or two and then came back, laden with a bottle of cheap whiskey in each hand, a packet of microwave popcorn between his teeth, and a spatula sticking out of the waistband of his trousers. Gavroche assumed that he had just run out of hands to hold things in. Grantaire, on the other hand, just didn’t question it. You don’t get to be Montparnasse’s friend for more than a year or so without figuring out pretty quickly that there is some stuff that you just don’t question. This instance, in which he took what he apparently needed and disappeared into back into his house with a ‘goodbye’ muffled by the packet in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so that went much deeper than I had planned for it to. Originally this chapter was just about R getting discharged from the hospital and then Valjean taking him home via the house. It was supposed to be a short chapter! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it as I quite like the way that it's turned out even if it turned out a little longer than planned!


	21. Free Trial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The court convenes to decide the fate of Grantaire's father and Grantaire himself has to deal with what that brings for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Hello! Wow! It has been a while, hasn't it? I do apologise for that, especially after I specifically said that I wanted to get back to regular updates. None of that now, though. I'm aware that I'm probably not going to update as regularly as I used to (once a week) due to my workload increasing suddenly and that fact that I really want to do this justice as we're coming to the end of this part of the saga (yes, I'm calling it a saga now, you can't stop me). Instead, I'm going to aim for one chapter uploaded every three weeks, but there is a chance that it will be faster than that depending on whether I manage to get ahead like I'm hoping I will. But! I'll say more in the end-notes! 
> 
> CW: IMPLIED/REFERENCED CHILD ABUSE, IMPLIED/REFERENCED DOMESTIC ABUSE, BRIEF REFERENCES TO SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, REFERENCED DEATH, REFERENCES TO MENTAL ILLNESS IF YOU SQUINT.
> 
> Enjoy!

(Roughly) One Month Later

People had warned Grantaire over and over again over the past month that his father’s trial wouldn’t be pleasant for him. They said that he would have to relive some awful memories, that he would have to look at crime scene photos from over the years (though the police refused to say photos of what at this time), and that every little detail of his life with his father would be scrutinised within an inch of its life in order to get him convicted. They told him all this.

And Grantaire told them he didn’t care.

Every single time someone tried their best to prepare him emotionally for the trial, be it Valjean, Madame Magloire, police officers, or even (once) a reluctantly friendly Javert, he had brushed them off, saying that he didn’t care what he had to do as long as the bastard was behind bars by the end of it all.

He didn’t regret the sentiment even slightly, but he regretted not taking the warmings and advice offered almost immediately.

The concept of sitting in a courtroom whilst a room full of people discuss the very worst parts of his life might not have sounded too bad in his head – god only knows how – but actually being in there? That was another beast entirely.

Evidence was presented and Grantaire vaguely wondered if, wherever she was, his mother had any idea that they were using pictures of her beaten and bruised face to imprison the man she was still technically married to. He decided, probably not. It’s probably better like that, though, he reasoned to himself as he tried not to look at the pictures of Enjolras’s blood on the concrete in front of Éponine’s house. She wouldn’t want to know and, really? He didn’t particularly want to see her. There were hospital records, arrest records, CCTV footage, a psychological evaluation, and forensic evidence all leading the court to the pretty obvious conclusion that the accused was a bigot with anger issues and a history of domestic abuse, alcoholism and a mild to moderate gambling addiction.

Grantaire had to fight so hard to not stand up in the middle of proceedings and yell “FUCKING OBVIOUSLY!” when _that_ was presented to the court.

After the evidence, came the testimonies.

They made the photos and the hospital records and even the CCTV look like a fucking Disney movie.

Of course, every single one of Les Amis had offered to testify, but, in the end, it was only Jehan, Éponine and Grantaire (obviously) that went onto the stand. Gavroche went with them to the courthouse, of course. Éponine had tried to insist that he go to school like a normal kid for once, but though she tried, there was no stopping that kid. Seriously, once Gavroche gets an idea into his head to do something, there is no stopping him and he was determined to support his family. And, if supporting his family meant that he got to miss a day of useless English lessons that he would never use, then that was just a bonus.

Initially, Enjolras had wanted to join them in their testimony, but their solicitor had forbidden him after it became abundantly apparent that he would not simply answer questions without trying to rile the court up into a fervour of righteous anger. The poor lawyer had nearly had an aneurysm trying to get Enjolras to simply recount what had happened on the 18th.

Montparnasse and Valjean testified, too. Montparnasse presented his account of the accused threatening him for Grantaire’s whereabouts and spoke about the various things he had heard from his side of the fence over the many years that the “family” had lived next to him. Valjean testified to the effect that Grantaire’s upbringing had had on his education. He offered Grantaire’s school record to the court and chunks of absence were noted, specifically a period of just over a week in early 2016.

This brought the court to Jehan.

They talked about the theatre, how much Grantaire had loved being in productions in year seven and the first two terms of year eight and had been so excited to take part again.

“You seem happy talking about that time,” the solicitor had said, “Do you think that it was a particularly happy day for Grantaire too?”

“Oh, definitely. He just came alive on the stage…” they paused, reminiscing before their face turned cloudy. “We all knew that it wasn’t great for him at home, so we, kind of, were grateful, in a way, for him to be able to leave all of that behind during rehearsals.”

“And do you remember the events of the evening of Tuesday 9th February 2016?”

“Yes. It was opening night. It went really well, and we were celebrating with our friends and the rest of the cast backstage when Grantaire’s father came barging in, grabbed Grantaire and started yelling about, um, saying that he wouldn’t have a queer for a son.”

Enjolras felt Grantaire’s hand tense in his. Unable to comfort him in any meaningful way in the quiet of the courtroom, he offered what he hoped was a comforting squeeze. 

He remembered that evening well, if not for the anger he had felt immediately once he had watched his friend dragged away into danger, but for the shame that he felt in hindsight for not fighting for him right then and there. And, now, in having the ability to look back on that evening knowing what happened afterwards for Grantaire, it made bile rise up from his stomach to think about how he just let him get dragged away.

Enjolras wasn’t paying attention by the time Jehan finished their testimony and was, instead, seething in fury where he sat.

Éponine came next. She had been specifically asked by the solicitor to wear something “appropriate for the courtroom”. By that, he had meant something that she didn’t own and that she would never, ever wear usually (she nearly decked him right then and there when he suggested a pantsuit) and so it was Cosette’s wardrobe that had provided the sensible knee-length dress that she looked incredibly uncomfortable in as she took the stand. Grantaire was half tempted to offer to swap with her if only so that she would stop shifting in her seat as the dress rode up to where it shouldn’t. He didn’t, obviously, but there was some masochistic part of his brain that was curious as to what the defendant would think to see him – his bisexual son whom he hated so much – in a delicate pink dress, no matter how sensible the cut.

Éponine talked about what it was like growing up next to Grantaire’s family and how she, being his best friend, had seen Grantaire change as he was subjected to years of abuse and neglect at the hands of his father. It was an emotional topic and the solicitor had instructed her that if she was to cry on the stand not only would it be entirely understandable, but it would likely help their case in getting a conviction.

She didn’t cry.

And the solicitor was nearly decked once again. Seriously, he seemed to be under the impression that Éponine was some kind of delicate flower who was one minor inconvenience away from a full-blown mental breakdown. To be fair, the latter part of that assumption wasn’t entirely false, she nearly completely lost it when she had dropped a yoghurt on the floor a few days before, but her mental breakdowns, generally, took the form of screaming into pillows and joining Bahorel, Feuilly and Grantaire in the gym and beating them all within seconds. Not crying. She really wasn’t the type.

“You were one of the only people to see Grantaire on the day immediately following the 9th February, is that correct?” he prompted. It was correct, she’d told him so what felt like ten thousand times.

“Yes.”

“What can you tell me about his physical and mental state on the day in question?”

“Well,” she began and Grantaire zoned out.

He didn’t need reminding about how he’d just seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth for almost an entire day until Éponine had found him at the park.

Instead, he remembered it for himself. How he had spent the day from 4 am until she had found him at about 2 pm – she had bunked off school for the day in order to look for him – on the most uncomfortable park bench he had ever had the displeasure of sitting on and how the only thing keeping him warm had been the two bottles of cheap tequila (it was so cheap he had suspected that it was chemically closer to paint thinner) that he’d managed to stretch out over the course of the day. It had been so cold that day. In fact, he remembered suddenly, that it had been the first day of snow that year. Jehan always loved the first day of snow, they always said there was something magical about it. Though, the only magical thing Grantaire could see about it in hindsight was how damn magical it was that he hadn’t got hypothermia. He’d been so cold that the flakes had stuck to his eyelashes and there was a frosty imprint on his tequila bottle where the condensation from his hand had frozen.

To this day, his knees still creak when it gets cold because of it.

Enjolras, on the other hand, hadn’t zoned out.

He was listening with rapt attention and a frown upon his face.

Never in a million years had he _ever _wanted to hear such a vivid description what the man he loved looked like on a park bench, in the snow, curled around a bottle of tequila – he had learnt what Grantaire drinking tequila had meant not long before – with angry bruises peeking out from the collar of his shirt.

A glance to his left told him easily that Grantaire had mentally checked out.

He understood why Grantaire had zoned out, he wished he could do it himself, though, Enjolras had never really been the type to just be able to ignore upsetting things. Affirmative action had always been something of a coping mechanism for him – or, at least, according to Jehan, that’s what it seemed like. He always tried to do something about it.

Except, this time, he couldn’t because it was in the past and all that could be done had been done and they just had to deal with whatever aftermath was left behind.

That kind of thinking was far more bitter than he was strictly used to, and, in realising that Bahorel – were he to know what he had thought – would slap him extremely hard on the shoulder and tell him to stop being such a selfish little baby and get over himself, he shook himself. It was true: Éponine had been helping him deal with this shit for so long; it was not up to him to whine about having to do it now.

He just had to be there. That’s all he could do.

And so that was what he planned to do.

Grantaire was the last to go on the stand and he went with the simple instructions to tell the whole, uncensored truth about everything his father had done, and that was certainly the plan.

He didn’t cry.

A fact that was surprising to exactly no one except for the solicitor (who had specifically requested that he would) and Grantaire himself.

Perhaps he owed this fact to having zoned out of the proceedings as much as it was possible. ‘How had he done this?’ you may ask. Well, it seemed to him, afterwards, of course, that, aside from his most basic thought processes and his ability to talk he had managed to completely disassociate from the entire affair. Seriously, after he sat down in the dock, he could remember almost no fine details of his testimony. All he knew was the facts: he gave his testimony, a couple of members on the jury looked close to tears by the end and the solicitor seemed very happy indeed with his performance.

Then he was done.

The court adjourned not long after that and Valjean offered to take them all – Grantaire, Éponine, Gavroche, Enjolras, Jehan and Montparnasse to the coffee shop across the road for a much-needed break from the courthouse.

Considering it was a mid-afternoon on a Thursday, the café was surprisingly packed. In fact, it was so packed that the largest table they had spare for the group had only four chairs, so Les Amis de l’ABC – or, at least, the five of them present – got creative.

It was a given that Éponine would get her own seat. It was just common sense. Valjean, too, got his own seat, though it wasn’t as though he hadn’t offered numerous times to perch himself on the edge of the too-small table or sit on the floor. That left Grantaire, Enjolras, Jehan, Gavroche and Montparnasse with two seats to split between the five of them. Now, Grantaire had never been what you could call _good _at maths, but even he could tell that that didn’t add up.

A game of human Tetris ensued.

Likely the best way to explain this human Jenga tower of limbs and, eventually, a couple of pretty serious cases of pins and needles is with a metaphor. Okay, so, think of each of the two remaining chairs as an island. On each island, someone sat in the traditional way – Grantaire and Montparnasse, if you’re curious. On top of them sat Enjolras and Jehan respectively, completing the two individual islands. As can be expected, Montparnasse found this _hilarious._

“Well this is awfully familiar, isn’t it, Jehan?” he said teasingly, the smirk on his face audible in his voice.

“If I remember correctly,” Jehan began cooly, “You were not the one being sat on that night.”

“Ah, yes,” Grantaire cut in, finding the whole ordeal too funny not to join, “Parnasse _never _tops!”

“Hey! I top sometimes! Ponine!” he turned to her for aid. He should have realised the moment he saw one of her eyebrows arched that she wasn’t intending on helping him in any way. Still, like a moron, he forged forward. “When we were together—”

“A bad way to begin any sentence,” she cut in, earning a petulant scowl from Montparnasse and a high-five from Grantaire.

“_When we were together,_” he reiterated, “I topped, didn’t I?”

She sighed, taking a sip of her drink in mock-thought.

“Parnasse, just because you’re the one doing the penetrating that does not mean you’re topping.”

Montparnasse scowled once again, entirely missing the mischievous glint that had appeared in Éponine’s eye as a devilish thought popped into her head.

“Besides,” she paused, taking another strategic sip of her drink, “You weren’t even always doing _that__._”

At that moment, Enjolras had been taking a sip of his drink. He regretted it when it came out of his nose in a fit of sudden, violent laughter. Well, half laughter, half shock that Éponine would say something like that in front of Valjean and Gavroche.

He glanced around. _Oh, thank God, _he thought, having found no trace of either anywhere near their table – still no doubt standing at the counter in the conglomerate of people impatiently waiting for their food.

“Okay!” Enjolras exclaimed, shaking his head to rid it of the frankly disturbing mental image. “Can we move on? Please? Before Gavroche gets back or I lose the last shred of my innocence?”

“Oh, please!” Grantaire scoffed, leaning to whisper entirely non-subtly in his boyfriend’s ear, “You’ve never been innocent.”

Jeering could be heard around the table, attracting some less than friendly looks from other patrons, but to be honest, Grantaire couldn’t care less. For the first time that day, he was managing not to think about his father and if that meant getting glared at by some Karen in a coffee shop then he was prepared to deal with that.

Suddenly, Gavroche, armed with a tray of cakes and assorted confectionary, Valjean was lagging behind as he carefully carried the second tray of drinks over to them, came bounding back to the table with a velocity that made it genuinely surprising that he was managing to keep the tray upright. The occupants of the table had barely a second to move their drinks from the table before he was slamming the tray down and joining their jigsaw puzzle of people on the two chairs.

In the end, he settled himself as a sort of bridge between the two islands of Jehan and Enjolras, his head in Jehan’s lap and his legs in Enjolras’s. As sitting positions go, it wasn’t particularly comfortable for _anyone_ involved, but Gavroche seemed adamant that that was how he was going to sit, and who were any of them to argue with a thirteen-year-old on a sugar high?

“Right,” Valjean said a little too jovially, in Enjolras’s opinion, for the occasion as he finally joined them at the table. Enjolras said nothing about it, though, instead simply leaning into where Grantaire was comfortingly rubbing small circles into his back with his thumb,

“We should have at least half an hour, I think, before we need to be back at the courthouse, so take your time and try not to stress too much, okay?” Valjean's little speech wasn’t explicitly towards _one_ of them specifically. _Implicitly_, however, it was _all _Grantaire. ‘Don’t freak out, R. It won’t do anyone any good!” was what he meant. And… yeah. He kind of had a point. What’s done is done and there was nothing they could do to change anything. Hey, would you look at that! Grantaire’s cynical philosophy was finally having a real-life benefit! And it was. Helping, that is. He wasn’t too worried. At least, he wasn’t as worried as he had thought he probably would be when it came to the decision-making stage of the trial.

Following a series of agreements from around the table, there was a lull in conversation group-wide conversation as Valjean and Éponine talked amongst themselves and Jehan, Montparnasse and Gavroche began talking animatedly about something or other that no one else was particularly paying attention to and Enjolras seized this opportunity to say something that he had been wishing he could shout across the courtroom while Grantaire was on the stand. However, in reality, he said it quietly and close to his boyfriend’s ear. As much as he would be willing to say it in front of a courtroom full of witnesses, it felt right that it would stay between them.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said, leaning back so that his head was resting on Grantaire’s shoulder.

Although he couldn’t see his face, Enjolras could hear the smile in Grantaire’s voice when he replied. “Thanks. I’m proud of you too, Apollo. I thought for sure you’d try to fight the other lawyer and have to be taken away and held in contempt of court or something.”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works exactly,” now Enjolras was smiling too, “but thank you.”

“Maybe you should’ve,” Montparnasse cut in, reminding the two that they weren’t, in fact, in their own little world, but instead in a rather crowded café accruing glares from middle-aged women no-doubt irritated at their closeness.

“What do you mean? Do you want my boyfriend to go to jail? Wow, Parnasse, I never pegged you for the jealous type!” Grantaire received a middle finger from Montparnasse and a possessive kiss on the cheek from Enjolras which he was only half-sure was meant in a joking fashion.

“Boys!” Éponine scoffed, an easy-going smile on her face as she watched over the scene, “No attention span whatsoever! Parnasse are you going to finish what you were saying or were you just going to keep teaching the toddler at the next table how to flip someone off?”

“As I was saying,” Montparnasse continued, acting as though he hadn’t halted the conversation himself and it was entirely the others’ fault, “you probably should’ve decked the bastard.” Upon receiving nothing more than confused looks from the others, he continued. “R, remember that guy I dated briefly bout a year and a half ago?”

A blank look from Grantaire.

“You know?” he prompted, “Brujon? The one with the shoulders…” he trailed off and a look of realisation dawned on Grantaire’s face.

“Oh! That guy! Yes, those were some _very _nice shoulders… Nothing compared to yours, of course, dear!” He pressed a reassuring kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek.

Enjolras hadn’t been jealous, but the kiss was nice anyway.

“Anyway,” Jehan interjected, eyebrows raised at how touchy-feely two of their most emotionally repressed friends – and they had many – had become in mere months, “Montparnasse, your point, _sil-vous-plait_?”

“Yes, my point is your dad’s lawyer? That’s _his_ dad.”

“Woah!” Gavroche exclaimed, joining the conversation with an awestruck tone. “Didn’t you say Brujon’s family had mob connections?” Montparnasse nodded. “That is so cool!”

Grantaire had no idea how to respond to that. Really, how was he supposed to process this new information when it meant that perhaps his father, the man who had ruined his life for as long as he’d had it, could go free with such a lawyer? The testimonies were thought-provoking, and the evidence was damning on its own, but, with the right solicitor, who knows what the outcome could be?

As if he was able to read his frazzled mind, Valjean cleared his throat and caught Grantaire’s attention. “R,” he said, his voice comforting yet insistent, “Have a piece of cake.” A plate of chocolate cake was gestured over and Enjolras took it, determined that Grantaire would have something sweet to think about when he could feel his breathing quicken underneath him – and not in a good way – with the thought process brought by Montparnasse’s helpful, _helpful _informative interlude. “Eat the cake, R,” Valjean insisted and Grantaire gave in.

It was _very_ good cake after all.

***

Reconvening at the courthouse for the verdict was about as nerve-wracking – no, not nerve-wracking, try _terrifying _– as it sounds. Everyone was packed into the courtroom just as before, but with nerves close to spiralling out of control as they were, to Grantaire, the room felt three times smaller and ten times as full. The blood was pounding through his head so hard he was sure that the building had magically teleported onto a railroad and that they were all about to be crushed to death by the fucking behemoth freight car that was no-doubt barrelling towards them at a rate of knots.

Suffice to say, he wasn’t having a great time.

Then, in a whirlwind, the train hit.

Guilty.

He should have felt vindicated, Grantaire supposed. It should have felt like a moment of great victory, that _that_ _pig _was behind bars, at last, it should have been a weight off his shoulders and an explosion of joy in his soul or whatever Jehan had said he would feel days before.

He wanted to feel like that, he really did.

He wanted to believe that this was where his life could finally begin, uninhibited by the shadow of his father looming over him and free to live without the fear of being found and beaten to a pulp for taking that fucking money.

Except, he didn’t feel any of that.

Because prison is only four walls and a door. Yeah, that door has a lock, but, at some point, the key will be used.

And five years is not very long at all.

So, he had five years. Grantaire had five years of freedom. What then? He just goes about his life and one day in five years gets stabbed because some moron let that prick get his hands on a knife? What about Enjolras? What about Éponine? And Gavroche? What about…?

His mind was racing a mile a minute and he was about to collapse back into his chair when, all of a sudden, he didn’t. Enjolras had his arms around him, squeezing him tightly and, no, things weren’t miraculously better, but, as ever, his Apollo helped him see the brighter side with only a few words.

“I’m so happy that you’re safe, R.”

His voice was choked and, if he could see his face, Grantaire was sure that there would be tears in his boyfriend’s eyes.

“I’m happy you’re safe, too, Apollo. I love you.” And, to his surprise, he was. The silver lining, though not immediately visible, was pretty hard to miss when he looked at it from the right angle. Enjolras was safe. Éponine was safe. Gavroche was safe. _He _was safe.

He was safe.

Even in his quietist, happiest moments, Grantaire had always felt as though there were a shadow a couple of steps behind him, even if he felt he had lost sight of it for a few moments, it was always there, and he knew it. Except, it wasn’t there anymore. And it wouldn’t be. Not for _five years. _

Five years.

It had been barely five months since he and Enjolras had got together and look at everything that had happened in that space of time!

Five years.

He was finally safe for five years.

“I know it’s not as long as we had been hoping for,” Enjolras began as though he could read his mind, “but you can do a hell of a lot in five years…” he paused, considering how to word his next sentence. Sue him, he didn’t want to sound too sappy when they were surrounded by their friends as people filed out of the courtroom. Enjolras sighed. “And I’m excited to spend that time with you without having to worry about _him _ever again.”

“Come on lovebirds!” Gavroche all but yelled from just outside the open door to the courtroom. Needless to say, he was glared at by the security guards, but, ever the rebellious teen with problems with authority he was, he merely cackled loudly to himself and held out his middle finger behind him as he walked away.

Grantaire shot a glance at Valjean who was shaking his head and mumbling something that sounded quite a bit like “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t see anything, God, how am I going to have to discipline that kid in three years…?!” He had to admit, he did not envy Valjean’s position. Having even the distant prospect of having to discipline either of the Thénardier’s was not a prospect he favoured.

Éponine appeared at Grantaire’s side, closely followed by Jehan and Montparnasse, and the comforting presences in his vicinity quadrupled. It was okay. He had his family; he was going to be okay. Even if it’s just for five years. And, with the rest of Les Amis no doubt waiting back at school with bated breath to comfort him whichever way the verdict went? Yeah, things were going to be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes, upload schedules! I'm not having one for this fic from now on. Sorry, I know that's probably really annoying from a reader's point of view, but, seriously, it's been a long-ass while since I've kept to it and it seems to be going fine...! -ish...? Anyway, yes, my working date for having the next chapter done and uploaded by is 12th March and after that... well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it! Thank you for persevering with me and this story, it really does mean so much!
> 
> Believe it or not (concerning the heavy subject matter) I really like this chapter. I just want y'all to be aware of the relief I felt writing the end of this because, no, not everything is perfect, but our boy and his friends are safe and... y'all, I might be crying a little. This fic has taken up a large proportion of my life for the last few months and soon it's coming to an end, but I'm so glad I get to write them being happy now. Again, not everything is perfect, nothing is ever perfect, but I'm really glad that y'all have come on this journey with me and I hope that you share my relief. They're safe! And, in the end, isn't all we really wanted for them?


	22. Moving Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this update has been a long time coming and, truly, I am sorry, but everything is happening at once right now. I've got a lot going on, not all of it is bad but a lot is not good, and writing has been so incredibly hard for me recently. But I've got this chapter done! And it's about 6.5k words which isn't bad at all! I actually really like this chapter (for reasons that will become apparent as you read)! 
> 
> Oh, I should warn you now, there is some slight smut towards the end (not much) so feel free to skip it if that's not your thing!
> 
> Okay, that's it from me for now!
> 
> Enjoy!

Another Month After That

Moving into a new place is hard enough when the outside world isn’t hot enough to fry an egg on a car bonnet, but with the sun beating down from a cloudless sky and the tarmac slowly baking underneath their feet as they brought box after box to the van, it was almost unbearable. _Fucking global warming, _Grantaire thought bitterly as he felt his sweat glueing his shirt to his back,_ it shouldn’t be this fucking hot in May. _He dropped the box he was carrying in the back of Bahorel’s van with a loud thud and slumped against Enjolras who was leaning on the bumper, sorting through one of the boxes – Bossuet had somehow managed to drop the keys to the house in one of them and so everyone was stuck outside until they found them again.

“So, what’s the new place actually like?” Feuilly asked, setting a box down in the van and perching on the edge of the boot for a momentary rest. The others, who were all either searching for the keys or dawdling lethargically and trying not to fry in the sun, turned to Éponine and Grantaire for answers. Well, they turned to Éponine because Grantaire had climbed into the back of the van in a last-ditch attempt to get out of the sun and was having a thumb war with Gavroche who was in the front seat with the car speakers and an aux chord. Only those actually moving into the flat knew anything about it and even they had only seen it a couple of times before signing the lease – co-signed by Valjean, who, of course, hadn’t hesitated in offering his signature – so the whole thing had maintained a certain air of mystery.

Éponine thought for a moment. She wanted to sound sure of herself to not to make the others think that she didn’t know what she was getting herself into, but, at the same time, she’d never moved into a flat before and was genuinely unsure about how everything was going to work. Not to mention the fact that she, as a matter of principle, endeavours not to lie to her friends.

“Well,” she began intending to keep her description in broad strokes, “it’s got three small bedrooms, a bathroom…” she trailed off, unsure how to continue remaining truthful _and_ make sure that the others didn’t worry. Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry; Grantaire piped up, finishing her sentence for her, sticking his head out of the boot and flinching at the brightness of the sun.

“The bathroom is kind of tiny and the kitchen isn’t technically a kitchen because it doesn’t have any of the appliances because we had to pay extra for that but, other than that, it’s great.”

“That doesn’t sound ideal,” Combeferre interjected with a furrowed brow and barely concealed concern laced through his voice. Enjolras nodded, he, for once, knew only what the others knew, and this new development was more than a little concerning. Had Éponine not continued, he would have started spitting out statistics and facts and obscure laws that insisted a dwelling must have a usable kitchen for the place to be liveable, etc.

“No,” Éponine agreed and Enjolras kept his mouth shut, “but we’ve got a kettle and a microwave. We’ll be just fine.”

“Yeah,” Musichetta joined with a smile, “and if you get sick of eating pot noodles and hotdog sausages, you can always come to the Musain and eat there!”

“Found ‘em!” Joly announced suddenly, halting their conversation in place as he held the house key aloft for all of them to see.

Bahorel, who had spent the previous five minutes frantically searching through boxes in the back of his van for those keys, was the first to speak up with a furrowed brow. “I thought you said you had them last, Boss?”

“I thought I did!” he said defensively and with no short amount of his own confusion, “I can remember having them in my hand when I came out here!”

“Where were they, dude?” Feuilly asked, turning to Jolly.

“In my back pocket.” It was said with a shrug, as though he knew he had to play it cool was he to get by mentioning any sort of PDA without getting thoroughly ribbed by his friends. Unsurprisingly, however, nothing of the nature slides by Les Amis de l’ABC without being noticed.

An oohing sound rippled through the group and Bossuet, being of the unfortunate genetic predisposition to do so, blushed furiously. Joly blushed slightly too, if only for the sake of solidarity, but was smiling proudly, nonetheless.

“Hey,” Musichetta piped up, moving from her spot at the opposite side of the car to stand next to her boyfriends and slinging her arms around them, “Just because y’all can’t touch Joly’s ass doesn’t mean you get to be jealous of those of us who can!”

“Aww!” Courfeyrac whined, “But Jolllly has such a fine ass!” Jehan, Bahorel, Feuilly, Marius and Cosette all nodded enthusiastically at this, the unplanned yet unanimous action sending the entire group into a fit of giggles that had the tips of Joly’s ears bright pink and Grantaire’s still-not-quite-healed ribs hurting from the laughter that was nothing short of veritable cackling.

While they should have been packing the van, more tomfoolery is had. Everyone gets gently made fun of in equal measure and the keys are tossed between them in a game of piggy in the middle that has Cosette actually _climbing_ _up_ Bahorel and sitting on his shoulders in order to get the height advantage that she _so _doesn’t have naturally. Eventually, Gavroche jumped into the fray and insisted that everyone get back to work. After all, it was nearing 3 pm and no one had had lunch yet and no one feels hunger quite like a thirteen-year-old.

***

“Rel,” Joly began hesitantly some while later when they were nearing being finished in their packing duties, “Are you sure that we can get all of this stuff _and _all of us into the van in one go?” He was eyeing up the back of the van, which was starting look very full indeed. His anxious tone went almost completely unnoticed by all. That is, of course, all except Bossuet and Musichetta, who appeared at his side in an instant, not overbearing, just present, making sure that their boyfriend was okay.

“Yeah, sure, why not, right?” Bahorel’s casual tone and _c’est la vie _attitude hadn’t quite been the comforting reassurance he had been looking for.

“Um…” Whenever Joly _‘um…’_s it is almost invariably because his mind is going a mile a minute and his mouth is taking a second to catch up before the metaphorical Kraken of Joly’s anxiety-riddled brain is released. This, as I’m sure it is helpful to know, is a textbook case. “Because,” he went on and the Kraken is out, “I’m pretty sure that it would break several dozen traffic laws and my mum said that if I get arrested again this year she won’t let me go to meetings for three months and the last time I had to sneak out I fell off the trellis and I sprained my wrist and I couldn’t write properly for ages and if that happens this year I’ll get behind on all of my coursework and if that happens—” he was cut off as two comforting weights fell on his shoulders. One hand on each and that was all he needed just then. He took a breath. And then another and then he just kept going.

When he seemed more under control, Musichetta spoke in that steady way that she had for whenever she was helping someone through a panic attack.

“Are you feeling okay now? Or do you need a minute?” She wasn’t asking for anything from him, all three of them knew that. They’d been together for almost three years and this was how it worked between them: they take care of each other, love each other and never demand anything that is not freely given. It was something Musichetta had suggested and ever since then they’d been stronger than ever.

Joly and Bossuet sometimes wondered whether she was secretly an angel. Then again, if she was an angel, Bossuet had reasoned one night when Musichetta had fallen asleep first, she was doing a shit job of hiding it.

Then again, Joly was also, along with Musichetta, pretty sure that Bossuet was an angel, too. A clumsy angel, yes, but an angel, nevertheless.

To put a long story short, Joly was convinced that he was the luckiest guy on the face of the earth. He still is.

“Yeah, if it really worries you, I’m sure Enjolras will let us borrow his mum’s car and we can go separately from the van, okay? There’s always a solution.” Bossuet rubbed comforting circles on Joly’s hip with the hand that wasn’t still on his shoulder and Joly immediately brightened at the suggestion.

“Would you, Enjolras?”

Enjolras turned immediately, smiling in that charming way he had that could make anyone happy for the moment and that made Grantaire go weak in the knees. Unfortunately, going weak in the knees is not something one particularly strives for when one is carrying a very heavy box of kitchenware (that would go mostly unused in their new kitchen-less flat) to the van. Luckily for him, Bahorel knew his friend incredibly well and was there to take the box from him when he was practically salivating looking at his boyfriend. _Disgusting lovey-dovey dickheads, _Bahorel thought affectionately, smiling to himself as he added the box to the Jenga tower that was the back of his van.

“Of course!” Enjolras said brightly, accommodating Grantaire who had smoothly slid his arm around his waist although it was entirely too hot for any kind of touching that went beyond the minimal contact that Bossuet, Joly and Musichetta were doing. “In fact,” not fazed at all by the sweaty smell radiating from his boyfriend, “unless it bothers you, I was thinking we could split some of this stuff between the car and the van so that it’s not quite so cramped in here. I’ll even drive!” Grantaire’s ears twitched at that, looking up at Enjolras with scepticism.

“Oh, good,” Joly sounded relieved. It was this that made Grantaire certain that he truly had no idea what he was getting himself into. “Because, Chetta, as much as I love you, you are an appalling driver and getting into a car with you is like playing a game of Russian Roulette.”

“Understandable,” Musichetta nodded, a smile on her face as she remembered fondly the time that they’d driven to the Kent Downs together and she’d nearly hit a sheep that had been in the road.

“Uh, dude?” Grantaire interjected, lifting his head from its sweaty, sweaty place on Enjolras’s shoulder. “Have you ever been in the car with Enjolras?”

“No, but he can’t be any worse than Chetta!”

“Okay…” Grantaire’s tone hadn’t meant to be dark and foreboding, just… lightly, comedically ominous. It didn’t quite come off that way and Joly did not seem comforted by it. “…if you say so…” The look that Musichetta gave Grantaire then… if looks could kill they’d never find his body. Needless to say, he shut up then and there. Luckily, as always, Éponine was there to neaten up his verbal fuckery.

“Enjolras is a perfectly good driver, Joly, ignore R.” And there was the glare that helped Musichetta’s drag his body to the nearest body of water. Surprisingly for Grantaire, though, it was Combeferre that jumped into the fray next.

He cleared his throat and nudged Enjolras’s arm with his own as he spoke. “Besides, I’m sure Enjolras will take special care to obey the traffic laws. After all, we can’t have three months of our meetings without our resident doctor. There’d be permanent disfigurement!”

“And that’s before we even get to the protests!” Courfeyrac jumped in with Jehan nodding gravely at his side.

“Yes,” they agreed, “I still have nightmares about that slogan planning session.” Then they turned on Enjolras with a surprisingly threatening finger stretched out at him, “If you get our Joly arrested, I will tell R one embarrassing fact about you every day for the next month!”

If Grantaire’s interesting in the conversation hadn’t been piqued before, it certainly was now.

“What? Embarrassing facts about Enjolras? That I don’t already know? Tell me more, good gentlethem!”

The conversation devolved considerably from there. I shan’t bore you with the details of exactly how they managed to shove everyone who was going into the van in there along with everything the three movers wanted to take to the new flat. To be perfectly honest, none of them were particularly sure how they’d done it either, just that it was extremely uncomfortable when they were finished. Of course, being who they are, as soon as it became apparent that the whole situation, the genius solution they thought they’d come up with, was deeply flawed and very uncomfortable¹, every single one of them became the stubborn bastards that they are and refused to find another method of transportation.

They reached the flat with aching muscles and an entirely unwarranted sense of pride in completing their endurance challenge of a twenty-minute van drive surrounded by a million and a half boxes of every single thing Éponine, Gavroche and Grantaire had ever bought – save from a few house plants, of course, that Joly had rescued into the car with him.

These aching muscles only seemed to ache more when they spotted the ‘Out of Order’ sign on the lift. “Oh, joy of joys!” Jehan exclaimed and Marius hit his head on the wall and kept it there, having suffered the most in the car by being sat on by both Bahorel and Grantaire. Whose plan that had been, he didn’t know, but he was sure that he would see them in Hell along with whoever it was that broke the lift.

"Right, Gav, you go and unlock the door and make sure it stays open while we bring boxes up," Éponine sighed, tossing him the keys as she watched him practically vibrate with restlessness to get to the new place.

"Which one is it again?"

"4c."

Without another word, Gavroche disappeared into the stairwell, inspiring yet another burst of mild jealously in each and every one of the others – except perhaps Courfeyrac who had Redbull flowing through his veins – for his seemingly endless energy store.

Enjolras, Joly, Musichetta, Bossuet and Feuilly (who had somehow managed to blag his way out of the cramped van and into the just slightly roomier car) arrived a moment later, not nearly aching as much as the others but just as pissed off with the lack of a lift to help with the boxes.

“Come on, guys!” Courfeyrac said brightly, either unaware or uncaring of the frustration of his friends. “It’s only four floors!”

“You say that as though it isn’t _four floors_!” Marius whined, earning a sympathetic kiss on the cheek from Cosette. And then, of course, a kiss on the other cheek from Courfeyrac because the guy is weak for physical affection of any kind, okay? Marius quieted blushing too much to continue complaining. It is unclear of whom he was blushing because of more, but I don’t suppose that matters; many things on this earth make Marius blush. 

They (begrudgingly) make it two floors up before they meet a bewildered Gavroche coming the other way.

“I thought you said we didn’t have a kitchen?”

His question received only a wave of furrowed brows in response and the speed of the aching party increased exponentially as they climbed the stairs, eager to know what the hell their youngest was talking about.

Sweating, they finally made it to the fourth floor. Having sped ahead of the group, Gavroche was waiting for them in the open doorway of apartment 4c with a finger outstretched at the fully-fitted – seemingly good quality – kitchen that wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

“What the fuck?” Grantaire had always been quite good at saying out loud what everyone was thinking, well, he liked to think he was, and he really was on the money this time. He received a series of confused nods from the rest of Les Amis and Éponine strode into the flat at a rate of knots, approaching the kitchen with no shortage of panic. Had she paid for this without realising? They couldn’t afford a kitchen! Or, at least, they couldn’t afford to have a kitchen and buy the ingredients to actually use it. A very real instance of not being able to have your cake and eat it.

A small sticky note, the kind that was plastered all over one of Valjean’s office walls reminding him of what he had to do that day, was stuck to one of the island surfaces. It was with a perhaps unwarranted ferocity that Éponine snatched it up.

_‘Call it a housewarming gift. -V’_

Without saying a word, she turned toward the rest of the group who was gingerly stepping into the flat and placing down their respective boxes.

“Uh… Ponine?” Grantaire asked, entirely unsure of exactly what her plan here was.

She gestured toward Cosette with the sticky note, her expression unreadable. “Did you know about this?” she demanded, her tone not quite angry, more of a confused accusation.

Unfazed as ever, Cosette simply smiled and patted Éponine’s hair lightly. It was the kind of gentle affection that Éponine wasn’t entirely used to being directed towards her and, though she would never admit it, she swore her knees went weak for a moment. She wasn’t touch starved, no, not at all.

“Surely you didn’t believe that we were going to let you live off instant noodles and cold hotdog sausages? Once I told him, there was no talking Papa out of it. I couldn’t have stopped him if I tried.” She didn’t seem particularly put out by her failure to stop Valjean’s aggressive philanthropy.

Éponine’s jaw clenched for a moment, she was deciding exactly how she was going to react.

Just as Grantaire was about to reach out to stop her doing something stupid in her desire not to be pitied, she surged forward and pulled Cosette into a rare hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered sincerely into her hair. As much as Éponine despised the idea of being pitied, she hated the idea of letting her brothers starve.

Cosette didn’t say ‘you’re welcome’, though every careful-mannered bone in her body was screaming for her to. She was, of course, welcome, but she didn’t think Éponine would appreciate societal niceties when she was breaking all of her own personal rules on physical affection.

The hug ended almost as quickly as it had begun, for which the rest of Les Amis was grateful for, a hug any longer than that one would have been incredibly awkward for the rest of them to stand around for.

From then on, boxes were being ferried from the van and up the seemingly endless supply of stairs and into the flat. It took them perhaps two hours to have moved them all, and, though he insisted he was fine, Joly made Grantaire tap out forty-five minutes in, not convinced at all that all of the strain would prove to be too much for his still slightly delicate body and he would drop dead somewhere around floor three. Bahorel and Feuilly had helped them move what they considered to be essential furniture a few days previously and so Grantaire spent the majority of this time lounging on the sofa that was absolutely not in the right place but was nevertheless quite comfortable. The ‘essential’ furniture that Bahorel and Feuilly had brought (Éponine and Grantaire had been at the hospital at one of Grantaire’s check-ups and therefore they hadn’t been there to argue with their decisions) ended up being three beds – how they got them through the tiny front door was a mystery to them all – and a selection of sofas and chairs that roughly amounted to being enough seating for the entirety of Les Amis de l’ABC to gather in their tiny living room. It amounted to a rather large quantity of chairs.

This large quantity, however, seemed, in the end, to be the perfect amount of seating once they finished bringing their boxes up. The plan (read: Éponine’s plan) had been to get everything unpacked that day otherwise they never would and they’d still be unpacking when they were moving out. Grantaire argued that this would economical and save them time in the long run. Somewhere at the back of her mind, Éponine agreed, but at that moment she just wanted to get out of that house and into their new flat, no matter how long it would take. Now, though, her arms were aching, and it was too hot, and she just wanted to collapse into one of the many, many chairs they had somehow managed to accumulate in their move.

So, she did.

“Fuck it,” she announced to no one in particular, though everyone turned to listen to her, “We’ll unpack tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank god,” exclaimed Marius, falling into one of the armchairs adjacent to her. “If I have to go up those stairs one more time, I’ll just fling myself down the lift shaft.”

The laughing that happened then was absolutely laughing in response to the thought of Marius throwing himself into an abyss and not the fact that he had said “shaft”. Absolutely not. They are practically adults. Okay, maybe they laughed at that a little. They’re only human after all.

One by one they all sank into the sofa or a chair. All except Jehan who elected to dramatically drape themself in their boyfriend’s lap, of course. After all, what self-respecting Romantic would choose mundane furniture when being sprawled across the lap of a loved one is available?

“Seeing as we’re giving up with the unpacking for today,” Musichetta began, “now seems as good a time as any to give you your gifts!”

“Gifts?” Éponine’s question was quiet and went entirely ignored by everyone but Grantaire who shrugged at her, he was just as confused as she was.

“Us first!” Bossuet exclaimed, only being saved from slapping himself in the face with all of his exited flailings by Joly who had apparently seen the dangerous gesticulating coming. The two boys leapt up and disappeared into what would be Gavroche’s bedroom, coming back in a matter of moments with what appeared to be a hat-stand balanced between them.

“Guys… what?” Éponine was lost for words. Even more so when Musichetta brought slid a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, out from under the sofa.

“When did you have time to plant all this?” Grantaire asked. Well, it was more of an exclamation than a question; he knew that he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone and so was happy for now to fling his confusion out into the open with no hopes of anything being cleared up.

Inside the package turned out to be three hats, three pairs of gloves in different sizes and three scarves (in their Hogwarts house colours²), all handmade by Musichetta.

“Gryffindor! Boom!” Gavroche exclaimed, snatching his scarf from the package, “Thanks, Chetta!”

“We just figured this might make this place feel a little homier.” Bossuet and Joly nodded along enthusiastically, having set the hat stand down by the front door.

“Plus, with climate change,” Grantaire began and the rest of Les Amis braced themselves for the ensuing debate, “Who know what weird cold snaps we’re going to get this summer!” All eyes swivelled to Enjolras, expecting to see him preparing to microanalyse Grantaire’s words and use every syllable against him even if for no other reason than to show that he could. What those eyes found, however, was their leader with a proud smile on his face as he watched his boyfriend. It took him a good few moments to realise that everyone was watching him, which, to be fair, made it all the funnier when he snapped back to reality.

“What? Why are you all looking at me?”

“Aren’t you going to disagree?” Cosette asked expectantly.

“No?” the genuine confusion in their leader’s voice was rather endearing. Grantaire certainly thought so as he watched the scene unfold before him with a dopey grin on his face. “Why would I? He’s right!”

Courfeyrac’s hand flew up to his chest as though it was instinct, a dramatic, dramatic instinct. “I’m sorry, I think I’m finally losing the last of my few remaining marbles, did you just say that _R_, the guy you have never publicly agreed with once in your life, _is right_?”

Enjolras opened his mouth to offer a scathing reply but was cut off by Grantaire’s amused tone. “Dude, okay, first of all: rude. Second of all, we have been dating for like almost half a year by now, how do you think our relationship works?”

“To be honest, dude,” Bahorel cut in, “I think we all kind of assume your relationship is fuelled by sexual frustration and mutual emotional density.”

This time, Enjolras made sure to speak up before Grantaire had the chance to agree with him. “We love each other so we fucking communicate, you dipshits! So, in all those months of communication, it would be boarding on moronic to think that we’ve never agreed about anything.”

“As ever, your poetry is astounding, Apollo.” Grantaire’s words were dripping in sarcasm, but Enjolras leaned in to kiss him, nevertheless.

“Okay!” Feuilly began in a tone that carried the implication of meaning _‘watching them kiss is getting awkward so let’s please move on before we all get toothaches from their sweetness’. _“My gift next!”

Again from under the sofa, Feuilly pulled out a beautiful menorah that looked as though it had been sculpted lovingly from scraps of metal. Having not grown up celebrating Hanukkah until she was, at the very youngest, ten-years-old,

Éponine was not entirely sure how it had come to mean so much to her so quickly. She thought that perhaps it was comforting to think that this was something that was passed down to her by her biological family (though she valued such a thing no more than her chosen family) that her parents hadn’t cared enough to ruin. Whatever the reason, she found she had tears in her eyes from the sight of Feuilly’s careful craftsmanship. “Do you like it?” he asked, a nervous edge to his voice that Grantaire recognised all too well as the one he had whenever someone he actually cared about came to view his art.

“Feuilly… I…” she was lost for words. Not something that happened often.

Thankfully for Éponine, Gavroche, in all of his youthful wisdom, stepped in. “She loves it.”

Without saying a word, Éponine stepped forward and crushed Feuilly into a hug. “You are coming over for Hanukkah every year forever now, okay?” She had found her voice and it was very clearly not a request.

“Yes, ma’am,” Feuilly joked, mock-saluting her as they pulled away, tears in both their eyes.

Éponine wiped at her face and laughed in spite of herself. “Okay, someone else give Gav a gift and stop looking at me, I need a minute.” There was a ripple of contented chuckles across the room and Jehan rose from their place in Courfeyrac’s lap and wandered over to one of the boxes they’d brought up.

“It’s not really a gift for Gav specifically, but they should brighten the place up a bit and clearly we need that, so you all stop weeping like war-widows!” They placed the entire box into Grantaire’s lap. Grantaire had, thankfully, detached himself from his boyfriend’s lips a few minutes ago at the reveal of the menorah and gazed down into the box with the kind of trepidation that genuinely suggested that he thought there might be something a live in there, waiting for him to lean in to jump out and attack everyone. To his immense relief, the box contained only an, admittedly absolutely gorgeous, blown-glass vase and a rather ridiculous quantity of flowers. Far too many to fit into the vase, anyway.

“Oh, dip!” Gavroche exclaimed, leaning over Grantaire’s shoulder to see into the box. “Alstroemeria! We’re gonna be so fucking rich!” After receiving only blank looks from everyone except Jehan and Combeferre, he explained. “Guys, floriography? Flower meanings?” More blank looks. “Come on, it’s like a secret language all based in plants, how cool is that?” When he finished he reached a hand out behind him without looking. Combeferre high-fived it and nodded enthusiastically. Éponine watched the scene with a sort of quietly bemused expression on her face, as though she’d just had a realisation but was not entirely unhappy with what said realisation meant for her.

Next, in the seemingly unending barrage of gifts, came Cosette and Marius. They had taken a slightly more immaterial approach to the task at hand, for which Grantaire was incredibly grateful in the end.

“You don’t have to take him up on the offer,” Cosette explained, handing a small envelope over, “But I know you’re worried about getting a job and we figured this’d suit you more than Tesco.”

Grantaire opened the envelope and his eyes widened. “How the _fuck _did you do _this?!” _his voice was near a screech and Éponine hissed at him to consider the neighbours.

Marius shrugged, pleased that his friend was so happy, “We just showed him your portfolio and he loved it!” he paused for a moment upon seeing Grantaire’s confusion. “…We may have also put together a portfolio of your work.”

“Okay, can someone tell me what’s going on before I lose it?” Musichetta demanded, stuck on the other side of the sofa with no way of seeing the letter.

Grantaire’s grin was almost manic. “They’ve fucking got me a _paid apprenticeship _with that tattoo artist on Barricade Street! Guys, I’m…” he sighed, collecting himself, “I fucking love you guys.” He stood and gathered both of them into a fierce hug.

Naturally, of course, Courfeyrac leapt at the slight sniff of a group hug and in a matter of seconds, the entirety of Les Amis de l’ABC descended on the three with copious amounts of affection.

“Hey, guys?” Bahorel called from somewhere in the hug pile.

“Yeah?”

“As much as I’m loving this, me and Ferre still have to give you guys our gifts and I’d rather do that with feeling in my arms so…” he trailed off and the pile of limbs hesitantly broke apart. Everyone slowly moved back to their places. Courfeyrac in one armchair with Jehan in his lap, Grantaire on the sofa with Enjolras and Feuilly either side of him with Enjolras’s legs in his lap, Gavroche draped over the back of the sofa but moving every time something interesting would happen in the room so that he could have a better view. Bossuet was sharing one of the larger armchairs with Joly and Musichetta was seated quite comfortably on the floor in from of them, resting her back on their legs as she carefully plaited Éponine’s hair, a fact that every single one of them was consciously aware of and yet no one said anything for fear of scaring Éponine out of this rare mood of affection that she was in. Bahorel and Combeferre had their own armchairs close by and were exchanging meaningful looks every other couple of seconds, a fact that had evaded everyone’s attention for the time being, and Cosette and Marius were sprawled together on a deckchair (that they had for some reason), Marius’s head on Cosette’s chest, looking very comfortable indeed as she gently carded her fingers through his hair. Seriously, if Marius were a cat, he’d be purring.

“You ready for your gift, Ponine?” Bahorel asked, an edge of excitement to his voice that made Grantaire sincerely wonder what he was planning. Éponine, with slightly furrowed brows, nodded – gently, though, so as to not throw Musichetta off her plaiting groove. “Catch!” Bahorel called and, without thinking, Éponine caught what he threw at her.

A key. A car key, for that matter.

Wait.

No.

A van key. _The _van key.

“No…” Screw not throwing Musichetta off her groove, this was bigger than a wonky plait. Éponine stood to face Bahorel and if, for the sake of courtesy than nothing else, Bahorel did too. “Rel, you don’t mean…?”

Bahorel shrugged, his smile immovable. “I’ve never been able to drive it.” Then, he added, “And don’t worry about the insurance, I got my mum to sort it and now you can drive it completely legally under your own name.

Éponine shook her head. “Rel, you know I can’t accept this. This is your van! You were so excited when you got it!”

“And now whenever I see it in the driveway, I remember that I fucking hate driving!”

His reasoning was sound, but Éponine wasn’t one to be deterred. “The car insurance along would financially cripple me!”

With the confidence of a man about to win an argument, Bahorel behind him to where Combeferre was just standing up. Without saying a word, from one of the boxes, Combeferre retrieved a large jar. _The _large jar, actually. The very same that had contained the bet money from all those months ago when Grantaire and Enjolras hadn’t yet blurted out their feelings at one another. Yes, that comically large jar was now full of money once again and the label had been changed. What had once read “Bet Money” now read “Insurance Fund”.

He passed the behemoth jar to Éponine who looked at it in shock before looking up at Combeferre with a furrowed brow of someone making a decision. Trusting her best friend to catch the large glass jar, Éponine tossed it to Grantaire, not taking her eyes off Combeferre. With the jar out of her way, she continued to look at him for a moment, the room deadly silent around them.

And, finally, with an exhale, she pulled him by the lapels of his jacket and kissed him.

There was no shortage of shock around them, then. From no one more than Combeferre himself, but he quickly reciprocated, carefully resting his hands on her waist as Enjolras, Courfeyrac and Grantaire whooped excitedly.

Quickly, though, Enjolras’s whoops of excitement turned into a groan. Éponine pulled away from Combeferre’s lips with much reluctance to stare at him with an icy glare.

“I can’t believe I lost to you,” he grumbled at Grantaire, digging through his pockets for cash. £15 in hand, Grantaire grinned smugly at his pouting boyfriend.

“Oh, you dicks!” Éponine exclaimed, kiss-clouded mind just now catching up with the real world. “You bet on us?!” It wasn’t a question. She narrowed her eyes at them and if Grantaire hadn’t been so used to being glared at by her, he was sure he would have been squirming in his seat. Éponine’s hard stares would make Aunt Lucy proud. Then, however, she seemed to reconsider. After all, she had bet on them for five years. This, in comparison, seemed minuscule. “Fair enough,” she said in the end before turning back to Combeferre who had a dazed sort of happy expression on his face.

“So, I gave her a van and I didn’t even get a hug? How is that fair?” Bahorel asked no one in particular and several throw pillows were thrown (quite appropriate for their name, really) at him from around the room.

Laughing at the absurdity of their own situation, the room devolved into giggles and everyone settled into their seats, limbs aching from carrying boxes and stomachs aching from laughing and so unbelievably content the evening progressed like that, with everyone chatting about whatever popped into their heads, with no real purpose other than to enjoy each other’s company and they were happy.

***

It wasn’t until several hours later that Enjolras gave Grantaire his housewarming gift. By this point, most of them had disappeared to their own homes, leaving only the occupants of the flat and Enjolras and Combeferre to their own late-night business. Unsurprisingly, Combeferre disappeared into Éponine’s room with a flushing face, Enjolras had tugged Grantaire into _his _room and Gavroche had fled into his own room muttering something about how his headphones weren’t noise-cancelling enough for this shit.

And, who could blame him really? After all, within an hour of everyone going home, Enjolras was swallowing around Grantaire and pulling his lips off him with a truly obscene pop. Chest heaving, Grantaire chuckled as he pulled Enjolras up to kiss him, tired and sloppy. “Was this your housewarming gift, then?”

Enjolras laughed against his lips. “Well, yeah. You won the bet, this is all I can afford now!”

“Oh, how terrible for me! Whatever shall I do?” he smirked, the sarcasm in his voice inescapable. “I’ll just have to keep getting blowjobs. What a shame…”

“Shut up,” Enjolras pulled him in to kiss him again and soon Grantaire’s hand was travelling down into Enjolras’s boxers to return the favour.

It was only after Enjolras came, shuddering and gasping into Grantaire’s neck that he dropped the pretence.

“I got you a monopoly set,” he said as he cleaned off the worst of the damage with one of the wipes that Grantaire had remembered to swipe from one of the boxes as they went past, Enjolras tugging him by the arm into the privacy of his new room.

Grantaire was confused, to say the least. “Um… why?”

“Monopoly’s great. Every family should have one. It’s character building.”

Grantaire scoffed good-naturedly. “Playing Monopoly with Éponine isn’t character building, it’s character assassination! It’s signing up to be beaten and humiliated with such efficiency…” he trailed off, clearly remembering some traumatic memory of playing the game with Éponine. “Are you trying to get us to hate each other?”

“Well, if you don’t want to play with Éponine, I’ll play with you.”

“Oh, I bet you will!” Enjolras shoved his shoulder playfully, throwing the wipe on the floor for one of them to clean up in the morning when it would be considerably grosser but neither cared in the moment to make a different decision.

Snuggling into Grantaire’s side, it was with a sleepy voice that Enjolras spoke, laughing tiredly. “Oh, I bet you will,” he said, punctuating his words with a kiss on Grantaire’s bare shoulder. “Who’s the horny teenager now, huh?”

Nothing else was exchanged between them that night, no words, just kisses ranging from chaste to tiredly-sloppy whenever they felt like it before they both fell into a deep slumber fuelled by their full day and fuller hearts.

***

¹If Montparnasse’s self-titled autobiography would be _‘Weed, Sweat and Bad Decisions’, _Grantaire’s would be _‘Deeply Flawed and Very Uncomfortable’._

²Slytherin for Éponine, Gryffindor for Gavroche and Hufflepuff for Grantaire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Ferre and Ép are finally a thing! And this fic is nearly done! Just one more chapter to go and then this is done! At least, for now... I do have some ideas for a third instalment in a while (I will want a break first if I do decide to do it) if that is something that y'all are interested in...


	23. Six Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is, the last real chapter.
> 
> Not gonna lie, I got a little emotional writing the end here. This is the first fic of mine that I've actually managed to finish and this has come to not only be something that I am immensely proud of but something that means a lot to me. As a thank you for sticking with me and this fic, please enjoy this 12.7k last chapter!
> 
> Ah, okay okay cool cool cool the last chapter!
> 
> Please Enjoy!

The hurried hustle and bustle of a backstage right before a show was something that Jehan absolutely adored. One could argue that there were many things on the face of the earth and beyond that Jehan adored, plants, paintings, the inherent beauty of a storm cloud just barely hiding the sun, Courfeyrac, but there was something simply magical about the buzz present backstage before a show. Would that they could stop and appreciate the rushing around of everyone else at that time, but Jehan had their own rushing to do.

“Has anyone seen R?” they called into the makeshift dressing rooms that were, technically speaking, a series of small custodial cupboards that the janitorial team had kindly forfeited for the duration of their four performances. They received only a series of no’s, ranging from apologetic to panicked to mildly terrified depending on who was in what stage of readiness. “Fuck.”

The audience was beginning to fill by the time Jehan had fought through the rushing about of the cast and crew that they loved so much. At the very front, in a large group full of excitement and love, was Les Amis de l’ABC - well, those of them who were not taking part in the musical. It was a given that they had come to support their friends, obviously. And, in the middle of them all, exactly the man Jehan was looking for. No, not Grantaire, that would have been entirely too helpful. No, they were looking for the next best thing: a Grantaire-finding professional. Well, second-best professional (Éponine was with Combeferre and Jehan didn’t want to interrupt their newly found love).

Enjolras. 

“Jehan!” he exclaimed brightly, undoubtedly ready to have a good night out with his friends. In a way, it was incredibly unfortunate that Enjolras was in such a good mood when Jehan had approached, it made them feel so guilty for what he was about to do.

“I need you to come with me,” was all they said, the vagueness of their words causing the smile to fall from Enjolras’s face.

A frown creased Enjolras’s brow and, voice sobered of all nonsense, he was in business-mode. “What’s wrong?”

“I just need your help, okay? Come with me.”

Enjolras had never been a particularly athletic guy, only staying fit enough to not get out of breath when he was ranting particularly hard and occasionally run away from the police. Yet, at the mere prospect of trouble even vaguely related to Grantaire, he vaulted over the (very much occupied) seats in front and chased after where Jehan was power-walking towards the stage-door. Combeferre made a note to remind him of that the next time he was complaining that he feet hurt when they went on a hike together.

Having finally caught up with Jehan, Enjolras grabbed their sleeve and spun them around to face him. “Where is he?” he demanded, the worry and desperation likely obvious in his voice, though, at the time, it wasn’t as though he could really bring himself to care.

Jehan sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose and thanking their procrastination that had led them to not have put on their stage makeup yet. “I don’t know. No one knows! I thought he was okay with all of this theatre stuff after what happened last time but…” they trailed off. They didn’t need to finish their sentence, Enjolras knew.

“Okay, when was the last time you saw him?”

“Probably…” they thought for a moment, briefly irritated with themself for not paying better attention at… wait… “at dinner! It was at dinner before we did a final rehearsal of _‘Rich Set A Fire’.” _

“'_Rich Set A Fire’_? He’s not in that one, is he?”

They shook their head. “I’m not either, but it was such a big number that I wasn’t paying attention to him!” Jehan said it almost wistfully, either for the rehearsal that had clearly gone very well or wishing that they’d paid more attention to Grantaire, likely both.

The cogs of Enjolras’s mind began to turn faster and faster, it was a wonder that there wasn't steam pouring out of his ears. It’s a big number, lots of dancing and lots of pressure to get it right, even just watching it. If Enjolras was remembering correctly, and he was almost certain that he was, _‘Rich Set A Fire’ _had a very repetitive beat, steady and good for dancing to. Therefore, exactly the kind of music that Grantaire had once mentioned worsened his anxiety when he was having a bad day. Once, _Another One Bites The Dust _had come on in the supermarket when they were buying food and they barely got four bars in before Grantaire had to go and sit in the car park before he had a full-blown panic attack in the middle of Aldi.

“Jehan, is there anywhere around the theatre department where Grantaire would be able to go to chill out where he wouldn’t be able to hear the music playing?” Jehan thought for a few agonising moments and Enjolras was near ready to start pacing if he didn’t get more information soon.

There was a moment of thought in which Enjolras was alarmingly close to grabbing their shoulders and shaking them for an answer. Fortunately, no shaking was required as, suddenly, Jehan was gasping with dramatic realisation and grabbing Enjolras by the arm before leading him quickly backstage.

As someone almost entirely uninitiated in the world of the theatre, the mess of people and props and pieces of the set that were waiting for their time on stage as well as just general people-mess that made up backstage was positively labyrinthine to Enjolras.

There was only one thing to stop them on their mission to find Grantaire: a frazzled-looking art student that Enjolras vaguely remembered from one of the times he visited Grantaire while he was working on his art coursework at lunch – he couldn’t remember her name and she didn’t offer it. Really, she didn’t even acknowledge Enjolras, she was too busy with Jehan.

“Jehan! You’re not in makeup yet?!” her voice was shrill, and she looked moments away from pulling her hair out. _Ah, _Enjolras thought, _must be the makeup artist. _“Oh, that doesn’t matter right now. I have bigger fish to fry. Have you seen R? We have ten minutes until the show starts and he hasn’t got the red in his hair yet!” Ah, so hair _and _makeup. That explains the stress.

“We’re going to find him now, don’t worry,” Jehan truly was a miracle worker when it came to soothing stressed people, “I know how to do the red shit and I’m not on for a while so I’ve got time to do it myself and do my makeup. You go and focus on other people. It’s all covered here.”

She huffed slightly but smiled at them gratefully, nevertheless, before turning to go back to her duties. “Thanks, Jehan,” she called over her shoulder, “You’re a lifesaver!”

Enjolras didn’t get even a second to recalibrate before Jehan was tugging on his arm again and pulling him through a door to a staircase that he hadn’t even known existed.

Since Grantaire, Éponine and Gavroche had moved to their new place a month before – and their landlord had still yet to repair the lift almost a month later – Enjolras had become rather accustomed to climbing flight after flight of stairs in order to see his boyfriend. It was unfortunate and he would be lying if he said that he hadn’t ever felt like throwing up once he reached the summit, but that’s just one of those things now. Once again, on the way to god knows – well, Jehan knows and presumably Grantaire, too, but the point still stands – where Enjolras was cursing the inventor of stairs.

Several times, Combeferre had tried to explain to him that stairs weren’t so much as invented by one person as just agreed unanimously to be the thing one needed in their structure to get to the higher bits of said structures. Enjolras, though he had at least tried to give the pretence of it, hadn’t been listening. Not after the first two times, at least. There are only so many times one can listen to the story of the birth of stairs without zoning out entirely.

Now, though, as he was thanking the training of sorts that going up to the flat had given him over the course of the previous month, the bitterness that Enjolras felt towards stairs as an institution was hardly at the forefront of his mind – though it was certainly in there. No, his mind was (almost) singularly focused, as always, on the task of finding Grantaire. 

***

The roof was cold. That was to be expected, though. It was high up and the evening had turned what had been a pleasantly cooling breeze during the day to a bitterly cold wind that had been truly infuriating in extinguishing Grantaire’s cigarette every two minutes or so and he hadn’t remembered to grab a coat before fleeing. So, arms bare and wishing he’d stolen Courfeyrac’s Michael Hoodie, Grantaire tried his best to ignore his shivering.

The car park was beginning to fill with people coming for the musical and the general hubbub was at such a volume that Grantaire was sure he could hear it from the edge. Not that Grantaire was anywhere near the edge, of course. No, though it had been a long time since he’d had thoughts of _that _kind, he still felt uneasy high up. As though any moment he might be seized with the inescapable urge to… well, it doesn’t matter.

Seeing as though he wasn’t going to go near the edge, Grantaire was huddled from the wind – to protect his cigarette that he’d finally managed to get lit more than anything else, to be honest – in an empty entranceway that belonged to a long-forgotten room that had once house radio equipment for the school radio station (damn, he’d have loved to have been a part of that).

A loud bout of laughter drifted up from the car park and Grantaire realised he had underestimated how loud the people below were and it clawed at his soul. A part of him worried that the fact that the mere sound of other people having fun made his anxiety flair like almost nothing else meant he was a bad person, but the vast majority of him was too freaked out to care.

He tried to hum something, anything to take his mind off… _everything, _but all that he could fucking think of was _‘Michael in the Bathroom’ _and that was _not _the right song at all. He pulled at his hair half-groaning, half-screaming in frustration as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor, cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

God knows how long it was that he was sitting there. Maybe minutes, maybe seconds, maybe days, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell if someone were to ask him. He suspected it wasn’t too long, though, because he still had half of his cigarette left when a shout came from the other side of the roof – where the stairs that led up there were – startled him back into cognisance.

“Grantaire!” Enjolras rounded the corner and Grantaire’s relief and reluctance to feel oh so broken in front of Enjolras were split right down the middle.

“R! There you are!” Jehan exclaimed, having followed Enjolras round the corner. They were in such a frenzy of needing to get him ready for the musical that they, Jehan Prouvaire, emotional litmus paper extraordinaire, completely missed the way that Grantaire had physically and emotionally curled in on himself as he tried to hide from the world. “We have to get you down there and ready in like five minutes! Let’s go!”

“I-I I don’t know if I can…”

This put a crease in Jehan’s brow and yet more worry in Enjolras’s heart.

“What are you talking about?” Jehan surged forwards, a barrel of adrenaline from their time constraints. “Come on, you’ll be fantastic! Let’s go!” They tugged Grantaire by the hand, attempting to pull the distressed man up from the ground and towards the theatre.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

Grantaire shook his head, his chest beginning to feel tight and panic building and building in his core. “No, Jehan. I can’t. I’m sorry. I just… I can’t go back in there… I can’t… I-”

A choked sob made its way out of his throat and cut off his ramblings as anxious and apologetic tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.

Jehan dropped his hand, their brain finally catching up with what they were seeing. “R…” They began to say something but Enjolras cut them off with a severe – though entirely non-malicious – look and stepped towards his boyfriend cautiously.

Kneeling down to be on the same level as where Grantaire was still hunched over, as though his body wanted to become one with the cold concrete floor of the roof, Enjolras took Grantaire’s face gently in his hands. “Okay, look at me, Grantaire. Look at me.” Though reluctant, Grantaire looked up at Enjolras and felt tears stinging his cheeks. “In my eyes. In my eyes,” Enjolras repeated the phrase until Grantaire complied, bright blue seeing into green-brown. “You are safe, you are doing something you love, something you are genuinely phenomenal at, you are surrounded by friends and your father is rotting in prison where he belongs.” His tone was unequivocal, the kind of voice he used when at rallies and events when he was stating the facts of an issue, the things that to him and Les Amis were obvious truths that seemed almost ridiculous to have to point out.

Of course, there was still doubt in Grantaire’s mind. “Yeah, but—"

“No ‘buts’.”

Enjolras’s tone remained serious despite the rather unfortunate double meaning of his words, at least partially because he just hadn’t noticed it. As with what happened every time Enjolras talked concerning something he was passionate about, he spoke with such confidence and fervour that he didn’t think about the possibility for accidental innuendo.

The many years that Les Amis de l’ABC had existed, Grantaire (with the help of Bahorel, Éponine, Joly, Bossuet, – eventually – Gavroche, and – occasionally – Courfeyrac) had been pointing out these little mistakes that were sure to make a crowd giggle petulantly and potentially lose focus. Or, that was how Combeferre had framed it once when Enjolras had been so frustrated with himself and the others for their interruptions that he had disbanded the meeting early with a huff and collapsed into a chair the moment everyone but his two best friends had gone. It would have been exceedingly strange for Jehan to see such a blatant example of this in “No ‘buts’” and for Grantaire to just let it be with no intervention whatsoever.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to endure that possibility for very long at all.

Despite the dread still clawing at his insides, Grantaire couldn’t help but huff out a small, dry laugh at that. Come on! He’s only human and the ever-so-serious Apollo just said the phrase ‘no butts’! The day he doesn’t laugh at something so juvenile coming out of Enjolras’s mouth is the day that his anxiety has won and he is well and truly dead inside.

Thankfully, they had not reached that day yet.

Enjolras, spurred on by his boyfriend’s brief smile, continued encouraging him, telling that he was a wonderful singer, dancer and actor and that he was sure to be phenomenal in the musical, all with a reassuring smile on his face and a soft hand stroking his boyfriend’s cheek. Over a minute or two, Grantaire’s breathing slowed, the aching in his chest calmed and he’d stubbed his cigarette out on the concrete beside him. He would have had to do it anyway soon, it was close to burning to his fingers given that he hadn’t had a proper filter on him.

“But…” Grantaire said finally, his voice slightly croaky. “_However,” _he amended his words after a soft glare from Enjolras, “How do you know I’m any good? I made sure that Combeferre would keep you occupied during my rehearsal times…” he trailed off, slightly embarrassed at the admission. Yes, he had employed Combeferre to keep Enjolras away from the theatre department during rehearsal times, it wasn’t one of his more elegant solutions to curing his nervousness surrounding the whole ordeal, but neither was it his worst¹. 

Enjolras threw his head back and laughed, relieved and amused in equal measure. “You sing in the shower, you moron!” 

Grantaire felt his cheeks heat, nodding as he thought to all of the times that he’d either been over at Enjolras’s and showered or the other way around. “Yeah…” he acquiesced, “but… dancing…?”

Now it was Enjolras’s turn to blush, and, much to Grantaire’s satisfaction, said blush was much more visible on Enjolras’s paler skin. “You dance when you cook and sometimes I just kind of stand in the doorway and watch you for a while…”

“Creepy.”

“Hey! I’m not the only creep here! Don’t think I don’t know that you watch me sleep when you can’t!”

Grantaire was almost certain to retort, as was the dynamic in their relationship (it had always been that way) but he didn’t get a chance.

“Okay, as much as it pains me to break up whatever pseudo-flirting this is,” Jehan cut them off, having been watching them with a small relieved smile on their face, “and it does pain me, you guys are adorable. R, we really have to get you downstairs and that red shit into your hair as soon as possible.”

Grantaire nodded.

“You’ll be wonderful,” Jehan reassured him as they tugged him towards the staircase that leads them off the roof.

“And we’re all in the very front rows to cheer when you come on!” Enjolras added resolutely, following closely behind.

***

When they got back downstairs, the atmosphere of backstage was, Enjolras didn’t want to say ‘freaking the fuck out’ but it wasn’t exactly an entirely inaccurate description. The closer the beginning of the show came, the more manic the atmosphere became, and Enjolras felt compelled to lend a hand.

So, that was how Enjolras and Jehan ended up crowded around Grantaire, T-2 minutes until the show began, Jehan powdering Grantaire’s face within an inch of its life and Enjolras trying his best to spray something close to resembling a streak of red in Grantaire’s hair without managing to get it on his costume and literally everything else in a five-metre radius.

The hair and makeup person from before burst past them like a hurricane, panicked and rushed off her feet, but clearly relieved that Grantaire’s disappearance was no longer a problem she had to deal with.

Grantaire made a mental note to apologise to her later. Maybe he’d buy her a bottle of wine², too. She looked like she could do with the de-stressing.

Jehan quickly moved from powdering Grantaire’s face to doing their own, officially getting into SQUIP mode, too rushed to pay attention to their surroundings.

For this, Grantaire was infinitely grateful as he pressed a kiss to Enjolras’s lips.

“What was that for?” Enjolras asked, slightly confused but smiling, nevertheless.

Grantaire shrugged. “Just for being there for me, I guess.” He looked down at his hands which were folded in his lap before continuing. “You always are and…” he paused again and Enjolras could practically see him quashing the self-deprecating thoughts that wanted to come out before he could say them. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he said eventually, “But, whatever it was, I am _so _glad I did it.” He looked up at Enjolras, sincerity written all over his face and it took all Enjolras had not to jump him right then and there.

“I love you,” he said instead, and the smile that spread on Grantaire’s face then was like seeing the sun come out after a storm. Sure, Enjolras was the one Grantaire called Apollo, but he seriously struggled how such a sunny smile could befit anyone else that a sun god. Ra, perhaps. Enjolras couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought. Ra, R, it was all the same and Enjolras knew that he’d never be able to hear their friends call Grantaire R again without thinking of it.

There were worse associations to have, he supposed.

“I love you too,” Grantaire said, leaning up to kiss his boyfriend. They were, however, interrupted before their lips had the chance to touch, by the whirlwind that was Montparnasse practically running past.

“R, stop fucking flirting and get ready to go on! We have like one minute!” he shouted while frantically fastening his jeans after being told last minute that they weren’t going to start with him in his underwear after all. He was furious.

“I _really_ have to go,” Grantaire said with the tone of a man who absolutely did not want to go at all.

“I know. You’re going to be great.” Enjolras pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling him unceremoniously out of his chair and towards the stage.

From where they were, they could hear a hush go over the crowd as ‘Jeremy’s Theme’ began to play.

Enjolras pulled Grantaire into one last, tight hug, whispering in his ear. “Good luck. I love you.”

Before Grantaire knew it, Enjolras was gone, heading down the side stairs that would lead him to the corridor so that he would have to go back to the audience via centre-stage.

_C-c-c c'mon c-c-c- c'mon, go go_ _  
C-c-c c'mon c-c-c- c'mon, go go_

Montparnasse was on stage and the show had officially begun.

***

Having been kept away from all of the rehearsals, Enjolras had no clue how the musical was going to turn out. Of course, he had high hopes and knew that everyone had put so much work into it that it was almost certain to be amazing. He couldn’t imagine a production with his friends in being anything less than phenomenal, not to mention that Montparnasse – though he and Enjolras rarely got along – really was very good at becoming the gangly, awkward Jeremy.

Jehan was, as expected, brilliant as the SQUIP. Almost distressingly so, actually. Before, Enjolras had been struggling to imagine someone as kind and gentle-natured as Jehan playing such a downright asshole, but they played it with such a mechanical coldness that, several times throughout the show, he forgot that was his friend and not an evil supercomputer from Japan.

Cosette’s Brooke was awkward and, yet simultaneously, sexy (even being as very much not into women as he was, Enjolras couldn’t deny it) and absolutely enamoured with the Chloe character. He remembered her ranting to him one day before the beginning of a meeting about how Chloe’s actress had completely dismissed even the possibility of Brooke’s obsession with Chloe being anything romantic, despite Cosette providing concrete evidence from the playwright that none of the characters is straight.

“I might tell her I’m bi just to get under her skin,” she had mused at the time. Enjolras had then launched into a tirade about how she absolutely shouldn’t come out as something she’s not just to piss someone off… that was, of course, until Cosette had burst out laughing. “Enjolras, darling, I _am _bi! Had I not told you?” He had shaken his head. As had almost everyone else in the room, save Éponine, Marius and Jehan. “Huh, I guess I only really _told_ Marius. How do you two know then?”

“Dude, you made out with me at a party, I had my suspicions!” Éponine said with an easy smile. Marius blushed, Cosette did not, instead, she looked rather happy with her drunken decision.

“You have a bi flag pin on your backpack.” Jehan shrugged, the others truly realising how dense they had been.

So, yes, that’s how Cosette accidentally came out to Les Amis de l’ABC.

But back to the show.

Courfeyrac as Michael was hilarious and heart-breaking and his chemistry with Montparnasse’s Jeremy was off the charts. ‘Michael in the Bathroom’ made him cry, not that he would admit that to Courfeyrac, he’d never hear the end of it. Enjolras also took note of the patches that Musichetta had been kind enough to sew onto his hoodie: a pride flag, an Italian flag³, Pac-Man ghosts, and a slew of activism-based ones. One of the said activism patches was a patch that Grantaire had designed as part of his Art GCSE that depicted a familiar-looking blonde-haired, fiery-eyed man in the style of a Lord Kitchener dictating ‘Your country needs you to guillotine the bourgeoisie.” At the time, Enjolras had huffed and lamented to Combeferre about how Grantaire hated him so much. Now, though, it put a dainty flush on his cheeks as he remembered how dense he had been.

And that finally brought him to Grantaire.

Knowing that he’d be great had done absolutely nothing to prepare Enjolras for seeing Grantaire onstage, doing something he loved in a tight tank top and doing very pelvic dance moves. Of course, that was not the focus of the character, but it was Enjolras’s focus for the duration of ‘The Squip Song’. Yes, the actual thrusting only came at the very end, but the knowledge that it was coming was just as distracting in its own right.

Aside from his pelvis, the rest of Grantaire was very good as Rich, too. He was hilarious and kind of heart-breaking and Enjolras swore he fell in love again at least three times during the show.

It was… way too good for a school play – as Courfeyrac’s Michael pointed out in the show. No wonder they’d all been so stressed out over it.

After the show, most of the cast disappeared to get changed back into their civvies, but Courfeyrac and Grantaire elected to stay in costume. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much you like this shirt, Apollo,” Grantaire said, loudly and unashamed with a flirty grin when Enjolras asked about it.

Courfeyrac, on the other hand, shrugged. “This is probably one of the coolest items of clothing I own, Enj. It has a polar bear on the back. A polar bear! I’m never taking this off!”

“What about the glasses, then?” His smile turned wicked, then.

“Oh, yeah. Jehan _really _likes them.” He drew out the 'really' for at least four times the amount of time than a normal person would have done and Enjolras got the message loud and clear. Jehan has a glasses kink. That is not the kind of thing Enjolras had set out to learn when he had awoken that morning. Then again, Enjolras was in no place to judge, as he realised while staring at Grantaire’s shoulders for the thousandth time that night. Is a shoulder kink a thing? Or, maybe it’s just a Grantaire’s shoulder thing. Who knows.

“So…” Grantaire began in a singsongy manner obviously meant to dispel any lingering awkwardness from the appalling mental images left behind by Courfeyrac’s words, “Backstage should be clearing out by now, shall we go and hurry the others along?”

***

Without the panic of a show about to begin, backstage felt different. To Enjolras, someone who wasn’t exactly familiar with this theatre or theatre in general, even he could tell that without the hustle and bustle of people hurrying around, frantic to be reading in time for showtime, there was something less magical about it all. As eternally focused on people as he was, it’s probably no surprise that Enjolras thought this way: that it was the people with such passion for the theatre that really brought the space to life.

Grantaire, on the other hand, while he could appreciate the panic of backstage brimming with life and nerves, loved the emptiness. Seeing somewhere that should be so lively so empty in comparison to before felt somewhat akin to stepping out of a cinema during the day, or an Ikea empty but still open late into the night. Now, it wasn’t the kind of thing he would paint, but he could appreciate the foreign-ness of the feelings it brought, nevertheless.

The others, seemingly entirely unfazed by the change of vibe in the backstage, surged forward, leaving Grantaire and Enjolras behind.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras said, grabbing both his boyfriend’s attention and hand as the others got further away from them towards the makeshift dressing rooms, “Come with me for a second.”

There was a suggestive comment that could be made as Enjolras led him away from the group, towards one of the staircases, but Grantaire liked his chances of getting laid that night and he didn’t want to ruin it by being a dumbass. Also, his mind was still tired from the performance and in order to get to said suggestive comment there were a few more mental steps needed than Grantaire was prepared to make at that moment.

The stairwell itself was grey and dirty – exactly like every other school stairwell ever – and not exactly the most romantic destination in the world, not to mention the fact that it was still practically sweltering from the mid-May sun that had been streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows all day. It was like a greenhouse but with no plants and an ever-lingering scent of Lynx Africa that reminded Grantaire of when he too was a fifteen-year-old virgin.

Enjolras halted them halfway up the staircase, seemingly happy with how far they were from the theatre around two and a half floors below.

Silently simultaneously thanking the costume he was wearing for its lack of sleeves and cursing the architects of the building for installing a summertime sauna in the guise of a stairwell, Grantaire watched Enjolras expectantly, waiting for an explanation for what they were doing in said sauna.

Without a word, Enjolras held a flower out to Grantaire, careful to not prick either of them on the thorns.

Grantaire couldn’t help but wonder, even in the slight haze from the post-show rush that he was still riding high on and his full heart at his boyfriend’s romantic nature that he hid so well, how Enjolras had managed to carry it all of this time without Grantaire seeing or the delicate petals being crushed.

It only furthered Grantaire’s theory that Enjolras was some kind of ethereal being that left only beauty and blooming flowers in his wake.

God, Grantaire was so in love.

“A… rose?” He had an inkling of what Enjolras was doing with _that_ flower specifically. “A single red rose… not trying to outdo me and my six years of anonymous Valentinsing, are we?”

“Shut up,” Enjolras said – with love, of course – and tugged him into a tight embrace. “I’m so proud of you, Grantaire,” he whispered into his boyfriend’s neck, hands crumpling the back of Grantaire’s costume with the way that he was holding on so desperately.

Enjolras thought back to the last time he’d seen Grantaire after a show, the way he’d stood back and just let Grantaire’s father come in and take him away to what he now knew to be the worst night of Grantaire’s life… Even though he was safe, even though he knew with all of the logic in the world that Grantaire’s father was behind bars where he belonged, even though there was no chance that history could repeat itself, Enjolras held on to Grantaire for dear life, a silent promise that he would never, ever let anything like that happen to him ever again.

Grantaire wasn’t one for having much pride in himself. He cracked probably too many self-deprecating jokes, his self-care was abysmal, and he had a few too many self-destructive habits, even by teenage standards. He was a cynic and believed in nothing but Enjolras. Enjolras, with his endless faith in the world and who, for a long time, Grantaire believed hated him… and was proud of him. _Enjolras_ was proud of him. The thought sent a flutter through his chest and tears threatening to spill down his cheeks.

Enjolras was proud of him.

So, Grantaire held him tight, not letting go until a thought occurred to him that startled him – he was shocked by his own forgetfulness more than by anything else – into pulling away and digging through his pockets.

Enjolras’s brow creased with slight confusion as he watched Grantaire struggle with the many pockets of his camo costume trousers. “Grantaire, what…?”

Grantaire shushed him, _actually_ shushed him, _no one shushes Enjolras4. _Enjolras frowned indignantly but shut up, nevertheless.

“I know you probably don’t see much point in celebrating an arbitrary length of time within a relationship,” he began, still digging through his pockets, though, it had to be said, with slightly more decorum (read: not much) now that he was speaking, “and to be honest I think anniversaries as a whole are pretty dumb too, but with all that has happened in the last six months? I just want you to know how grateful I am for you and how much I love you and,” he flashed a winning smile, clearly, he had found what he was looking for in his pockets, “if you want, you can show up on my doorstep for a booty call any day.” Enjolras frowned. Surely, he had been allowed to do that anyway? “Now, you can even let yourself in.”

Oh. _Oh. _Enjolras finally understood.

Grantaire held out the key to his home, flat out on his palm as though it was some delicate artefact worth millions, and, to Enjolras it might as well have been.

A key with value beyond any of his wildest hopes and dreams – personally speaking, anyway, monetarily it had been free because Grantaire had employed Feuilly and Bossuet to cut it for him – and Grantaire was giving it to him freely.

“I… I don’t know what to say…”

“That’s a first.” The response was instantaneous, almost instinctual and, truthfully, Grantaire hadn’t meant to say it. They’d been frenemies (though Enjolras despised the term) for so long and old habits die hard.

Enjolras tried to glare at him, he really did, but the awestruck smile that was still on his face really took away some of the punch of that patented Enjolras grumpiness.

There was a time, not so long before, that even the mere concept of this would have seemed absurd to them both. To Enjolras, that Grantaire would so freely offer up a key to his home, his safe haven, to Enjolras with no trepidation, no shortage of certainty that it was the right thing to do… For Grantaire, the absurdity would have come from the way that Enjolras snatched it up so eagerly, no hesitation in the way that he pulled him in for a kiss filled with such love and passion. Six months ago, that would have been a ridiculous notion that would only hurt when he inevitably dwelled on it for too long.

But it was real.

All of the last six months, the good and the bad, was real.

And Enjolras was lost for words with the thought of it all.

“Grantaire. I love you. So much,” he said into his boyfriend’s neck with such a firmness that Grantaire, the man who doubts everything and believes in (almost) nothing, whose brain tells him that he isn’t worth the love that his friends give him, didn’t even think to doubt his sincerity.

He spoke with equal honesty, feeling the meaning of his words deep in his bones. “I love you too.” They had both said the words countless times during the past six months and in so many different ways. Confessions, saying goodbye and in no shortage of sexual settings… and every time it had been 100% genuine. But, at the same time, they said it so much that sometimes they forgot how deeply pangs of that feeling hit them sometimes.

Not that either of them would even consider saying it less. Even if it would make the times they said it feel more special – as a nasty insecure voice in Grantaire’s head had once suggested – neither would trade the burst of happiness they would get when the other ended a phone call that way or bought the takeaway dish that the other loves without being told what to get for anything.

“Your gift from me…” Enjolras began with a smile, as he pulled back from Grantaire for a moment, that was almost uncharacteristically sheepish.

“You got me a gift?”

Enjolras smiled as if to say, ‘of course I did, you dumbass.’ “It’s already at your flat.”

Grantaire wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Enjolras let out a barely repressed snort of laughter. “What are we waiting for then?”

“For the others,” Enjolras replied with a sigh, as much as it pained him that he could get Grantaire back to that empty flat immediately, he wasn’t going to ditch their friends, no matter how tempting the thought was. 

As if summoned by the mere thought of them, the voice of none other than Bahorel came calling up the stairwell. “Alright, zip-up, guys! We’re going to get milkshakes!”

***

As much as Grantaire had been ever-so-slightly annoyed that he couldn’t go straight home to be showered with gifts and affection (perhaps the latter even _in _the shower…), there was something to be said of the magical energy that hung around a group of theatre kids and their friends after a show. Especially considering that The Musain was empty apart from them.

Well, technically, it was closed but Musichetta had the keys and she said that as long as the money was cashed in during open hours there shouldn’t be a problem.

“…So I’m sitting there, and he’s staring at me and I’m like ‘what the fuck am I supposed to do here?’ and he’s looking at me like he wants to kill me so… I panicked!” Montparnasse was continuing with the story that Enjolras had mentally checked out of five minutes beforehand, but it seemed to be going well. The entire group – save Gavroche, who had fallen asleep with his head in Courfeyrac’s lap about ten minutes before, Bossuet, who was paying particularly close attention to kissing Joly’s neck, and Joly, who looked like he was about to spontaneously combust any second from the combination of Bossuet’s ministrations and the presence of Musichetta who was simply seated in his lap (having been the one making the drinks and so last to the table, suffice to say she didn’t take the fact that she didn’t have a real chair as something to cry over) but was very clearly smug about what was happening beneath her, even if she was listening to the story like the rest of them – was listening to the story intently with Cheshire-Cat-like grins on each and every face.

Feuilly scoffed. “Dude, I don’t care how much you were panicking! The logical solution to being caught smoking weed by your maths teacher is not to offer him some!” Grantaire was sure that if he was to smile any wider, his face would split in two.

It was so wonderful to be carefree.

The months, _years_, he had spent with fear and remorse slowly chipping away at his soul didn’t matter. Not for the moment. Perhaps they would in the morning, but Grantaire didn’t have it in him to worry about that just yet, only concerned with hearing the end of Montparnasse’s ridiculous story.

“He was a student teacher, okay? He was barely two years older than me!” Montparnasse, crossed his arms defensively, smiling through it nonetheless. “Besides,” he continued, his smile regaining its signature sly, cocky edge, “He didn’t exactly refuse, so…”

“You smoked weed with a teacher?” Combeferre asked, managing somehow to sound both concerned and slightly impressed.

Montparnasse shrugged. “It was off school grounds, on a weekend and he had just come stumbling out of the gay bar on West Street, so I find it hard to believe that he was sober.”

It was only then that Grantaire remembered that he had heard this story before and he couldn’t help but wonder if Montparnasse would be so ballsy as to tell the end of that story to a table full of people that were far less used to the kind of depraved and morally flexible shit that he got up to.

Turns out, as he drew his story to a close with a resounding lack of information about how he actually hooked up with that student-teacher as a way to make sure that he didn’t get in trouble for being caught with weed and instead finished with them smoking the joint together and parting ways as reluctant friends.

Oh, how Grantaire had missed Montparnasse’s ridiculousness.

Still, though, going by how Grantaire could feel Enjolras physically restraining himself from going on a tirade on the ethical minefield that was student-teacher relations, Montparnasse’s censorship had been well-placed. Not that Enjolras could ever know that it had been censored, otherwise he would go on a tirade about censorship and that would defeat the purpose of censoring it in the first place. Grantaire loved him, he did, and that was why he kept his mouth shut. For the sake of both his lover’s vocal cords and sanity.

The Musain hosted them for another hour until Gavroche started snoring.

“Aw, isn’t he a cutie!” Courfeyrac cooed more to Jehan than anyone else, though of course, the others heard, as he lightly combed the tween’s hair with his fingers.

“Yeah, a cutie who’s going to be a real bitch tomorrow when he wakes up with his neck hurting,” Bahorel laughed, imagining the carnage that the morning would bring and being glad that he wouldn’t have to be around to witness it. After all, Bahorel had dealt with Grumpy Gavroche, as they called him, before when he had had tonsillitis and neither Éponine nor Grantaire could miss classes to stay with him. Let’s just say it hadn’t been a pretty picture.

Éponine groaned into Combeferre’s shoulder, who simply smiled sympathetically and kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t look so happy, Moth-Man,” Grantaire warned, “Don’t forget you’re sticking around tonight, so it’s not like you’ll be spared in the morning!”

Combeferre ducked his head slightly and Grantaire was sure that he was blushing.

“Wait…” Marius piped up, lifting his head from where it had been on Cosette’s shoulder for the past half an hour, “You two are dating? Like actually dating?!”

The room was silent bar Gavroche’s gentle snores every other moment.

“Marius,” Éponine began, dumbfounded, “You were there when we kissed for the first time!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you were actually dating now!” A genuinely happy smile spread across his face and Éponine couldn’t help smiling too. “Oh, I’m so happy for you!” He practically leapt out of his seat next to Cosette in order to tackle both Éponine and Combeferre in a hug.

Marius, though he could sometimes be a little slow on the uptake with the inner, interpersonal machinations of the group, never fails to show his friends how happy he is for them, how proud he is of them, or how appreciated they really are.

What can you say? The guy loves love.

Éponine laughed as she patted him on the back and Combeferre, while grateful for Marius’s love and support, couldn’t help but watch her in amazement. As he committed every little crease and mole and line on her face to memory, he couldn’t help but wonder how he had convinced Éponine, in all of her wonderfully contradictory glory – with her sharp edges and even sharper stares paired with and perfectly juxtaposing the softness she has for her family and her love of Rom-Coms and Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet and fluffy blankets – so beautiful and strong and smart and funny and so full of love but so afraid to give it… how anyone, least of all him, had been allowed to love her, let alone be worthy of being loved or even merely tolerated, in return. It boggled his mind.

But here she was.

And there was the weight of her hand in his underneath the table and there was that lightness in his chest whenever he thought about her.

The moment she had kissed him, all those weeks ago, well the moment he regained cognitive thought after those first few moments of exhilarated shock, Combeferre took back every single thing he had said making fun of Grantaire and Enjolras for their PDA. If that was what it felt like for them every single time they kissed, he couldn’t blame them for doing it all of the time. Hell, if he had his way, he and Éponine would never stop.

“Ferre!” Enjolras was suddenly shouting next to his ear, the group watching him with amused grins, Éponine blushing slightly.

“Do you want to keep staring at Ponine like a lovestruck puppy, or do you want to help us carry this overgrown child to the van?” Musichetta asked with a laugh, finally clambering out of Joly’s lap to help with the grumbling tween before them.

“That’s rich coming from you, Chetta!” Grantaire exclaimed. “Every time either Joly or Boss open their mouths you look at them like they’re shitting out the sunshine!”

“At least I don’t obsessively paint the objects of my affection, R,” she retorted with a smile, getting only the middle finger from both Grantaire and Enjolras in return.

Bahorel let out a loud squawk of laughter. “That’s only because you can’t paint, Chetta.”

It was true. As creative and innovative as Musichetta could be in the kitchen – it really was where she shone – the traditionally creative subjects, art, music, creative writing, was the exact inverse. Giving Musichetta a canvas and a pot of paint is one of the worst things a person could do and Grantaire and Jehan had once agreed that if she’d been alive in the times of Ancient Greece there would have been a tragedy written about a hero’s ultimate demise after making the mistake of giving her a lyre and the freedom to do whatever she wants with it.

Grantaire had painted her in such a setting once and Jehan had written some pretty damn good poetry about it, so, ironically, her lack of creative flair really inspired theirs. 

“Yeah!” Feuilly agreed, nodding, “You’re all as bad as each other and I thank God every day that I’m not in a relationship, so I don’t turn out to be as sappy as you all, you romantic fuckers!”

Bahorel high-fived him with gusto, linking their hands together as they touched.

Feuilly let out a theatrical gasp. “Bro?”

“Bro,” Bahorel spoke more softly, caressing Feuilly cheek with his other hand.

Their silent eye contact – that Enjolras was pretty sure was mocking the early days of his and Grantaire’s lingering sexual tension – lasted for barely five seconds before they were devolving into hysterics.

“Alright, let’s get the kid to bed.” Bahorel, being the physically largest and strongest of all of them, negated Musichetta, Grantaire, Courfeyrac and Combeferre all having stood up in order to help with moving Gavroche without having to wake him up in one fell swoop. He picked the tween up and slung him over his shoulder, not unlike a sack of potatoes, starting towards the door as though it was nothing.

The rest of Les Amis de l’ABC was left gaping in his wake. After over five years, one would assume that they would be used to Bahorel surprising them.

They weren’t.

“Remind me to never get into a fistfight with Bahorel,” Grantaire heard Marius mutter to Cosette in a tone that was only about 28% joking, Cosette laughed and Grantaire tried his very best to not choke on the milkshake that he was desperately trying to finish before they left as he held in his own laughter.

As Grantaire tried his best not to breathe in his milkshake, Enjolras was struck by one of those moments of profound contentment and almost overpowering love for another person. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. In romcoms, the moment that the protagonists see each other for the first time, the background noise fades out and the music swells and it is a monumental moment of love at first sight for all in the audience to see. That’s what Enjolras felt. His chest felt light and full and fluttery all at the same time and he was simply astounded by his own emotional capacity at that moment.

God, how he loved that man.

And he felt it all while Grantaire was hoping that milk didn’t come out of his nose.

Dabbing at his nose that was beginning to run, Grantaire glanced over to his boyfriend to find Enjolras staring at him with an entirely loved-up look that made his stomach do that swoopy thing that it always did when Enjolras was doing… well, practically anything, to be honest. “What?” he asked, aware that were he not so incredibly happy surrounded by all of his friends that he probably would’ve felt quite self-conscious.

Enjolras shook his head slightly, as though trying to get his brain into gear. “Nothing, it’s just you’re really beautiful,” he said, unabashedly, stepping closer to Grantaire. Whoop, there goes Grantaire stomach doing the swoopy thing again. “And you have whipped cream on your eyebrow.”

Grantaire huffed out a small laugh just before Enjolras took his breath away once again by raising his hand to his face and wiping it away with his thumb, his hand resting on Grantaire’s cheek. “Hi,” he said quietly and with such a bright smile that Grantaire wondered whether he should’ve put on sun cream that morning.

“Hi.” And he couldn’t resist pressing forward and kissing his boyfriend’s nose.

“You missed.”

“I did not! I hit the exact target I was going for!”

They were still mere centimetres apart and Enjolras – no matter how flawless Grantaire insisted he was sometimes – was still an impatient bastard. “I disagree,” he said, still smiling but voice undeniably firm, and, without another word, pressed forward to kiss Grantaire on the lips.

It was hardly their dirtiest kiss.

Barely even scraping the top thirty.

And, yet, Musichetta felt the need to separate them with a loud clap right next to their heads.

“Ah!” Enjolras exclaimed, practically falling over with surprise. Grantaire, on the other hand, was slightly more eloquent.

“Holy motherfucking shit, Chetta! Why the fuck…?!”

“You two are adorable, yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you fuck in my place of work,” she paused, looking around at all of the tables and grimacing. “Especially not when I’m going to end up cleaning these tables tomorrow.”

It was only then that the two of them realised that they and Musichetta were the only ones left in the café. Everyone else had filed out to wait for them outside.

***

“Aren’t you getting in, Rel?” Éponine called from the front seat of _her _van, still equal parts ecstatic and undeniably smug that she could call it that.

Bahorel, who was holding his ornate silver lighter up to Feuilly’s cigarette, snapped his attention from the flame to Éponine. “Nah,” he said, snapping the lighter shut with that satisfying noise that such lighters make. “I’m gonna stay at Feuilly’s tonight and we’re walking, so…”

Feuilly lived barely a mile away in a large flat in the centre of town. It was several large steps up from some of the places he’d lived in over the years and he adored his family, they gave him the room with the balcony – which very much came in handy with trying to avoid making his room smell of smoke (cigarette or otherwise) – they appreciated that he had been independent almost his entire life and so wouldn’t rely on them for everything, and they were genuinely some of the nicest people he’d ever met.

Think the kindness of Jehan and Cosette combined with the quick wit of Courfeyrac and Grantaire and the eclectic music taste of Bahorel. Seriously, one time he had come home to a mashup of the Kahoot music and Eminem.

Truth be told, it wasn’t too bad.

Needless to say, with how Bahorel had bonded with them over music, they welcomed him with open arms whenever he didn’t feel like staying at home.

“See ya, guys!” Feuilly called over his shoulder as they walked away together and Bahorel spluttered on a gust of smoke that was blown from Feuilly to him by a rogue gust of wind.

A chorus of goodbyes rang out behind them, tones ranging from Courfeyrac’s brilliant enthusiasm to Marius’s tired, tired voice that was probably closer to a groan that it was to actual words. “See you tomorrow!” “Bye!” And the two head off towards Feuilly’s home that lay no more than 20 minutes away.

“Chetta,” Éponine called, not too worried about her volume waking Gavroche up – seriously that kid could sleep like a rock, “You coming?”

“Yep, just let me lock up.”

At Musichetta’s confirmation, Bossuet and Joly sprang into action, jumping into the back of the van.

“Boss, Joly? You’re going to Chetta’s?” Combeferre asked, thinking off how rarely the three were actually able to stay overnight somewhere due to strict parents and beds that are just a little too small for three people. Especially Joly and his gangly yet giant legs.

The two boys’ faces lit up at the inquiry. “Yeah!” Bossuet said, high-fiving Grantaire when he had held his hand up. “Her mum isn’t home!” Joly explained simultaneously, looking equally ecstatic.

The fact that Musichetta’s mother wasn’t home meant that they could set up their blanket fort in the living room. It was their way of getting around the fact that Musichetta’s single bed was the only one open to them. Well, technically they _could _use Musichetta’s mother’s bed but Musichetta rather reasonably refused to even contemplate having sex in her mother’s bed. So, they strung fairy lights up and piled together as many blankets as possible and had a movie night.

It was very rare that any of them could remember the plot of said movie in the morning.

“Ah,” Cosette chimed in, not halting with the way she was stroking the sleepy Marius’s hair as he leant on her shoulder, eyes closed and seemingly so close to sleep. It made Enjolras wonder who exactly would be driving Marius’s car if he fell asleep. “So, threesome tonight and pancakes in the morning?”

“Of course.”

It was a running joke between Cosette, Musichetta, Joly, Bossuet, Éponine, Bahorel and Grantaire stemming from the time that they had turned up to Joly’s house in the morning for a pre-planned study session (the session had been planned so as to include the minimum amount of actual studying possible). Being the kind of friends they were, Cosette and the others – excluding Joly, Musichetta and Bossuet, of course – had entered the house without knocking. The door was unlocked and so they didn’t even hesitate. They had been greeted by the rather lovely domestic scene of Musichetta flipping pancakes at the stove and Joly holding one of Bossuet’s fingers under the cold tap. They were in various states of undress. Musichetta in one of Joly’s jumper that was far too long on her, practically a dress, Bossuet was simply in a pair of boxers that may or may not have also been Joly’s and Joly, being the most clothed of them, was wearing a t-shirt that was significantly too broad for him (a product of Bossuet) and a pair of ill-fitting bright pink sweatpants (an undeniably Musichetta item of clothing).

They hadn’t noticed the others right away and the atmosphere of the room had been so calm and loving that the others felt bad for intruding.

On seeing them, Joly had blushed slightly but looked as undeniably pleased with himself and his lovers as Bossuet unabashedly did and Musichetta didn’t even falter in welcoming them and offering them pancakes.

In the end, it had been the intruders who had been the most embarrassed about walking in as Musichetta explained without hesitation that whenever they had the chance to spend the night all together they would have a relaxed morning with pancakes and low-level brain-activity, thus them all having forgotten the study session.

Grantaire still couldn’t look at pancakes the same way almost a year later.

“Okay, well, wrap it up!” Courfeyrac advised with a cheeky smile on his face, pointing a warning finger towards Bossuet and Joly in the van. “That’s double the chance for accidental pregnancy!” Joly blushed so much at that that you’d have thought he’d just run a mile.

“Fuck off, Courf!” Musichetta shouted, finally locking the door and making her own way to the van that was beginning to be rather extremely full of people.

“Gladly!” he smirked at Jehan and pressed a slopping kiss to his lover’s neck.

“Okie dokie then!” Jehan announced casually, as though their boyfriend wasn’t attached to their neck as they spoke. “We’re walking too so we should probably be on our way.”

At that, Marius perked up from Cosette’s shoulder and gaped at them with a horrified expression. “But you both live like miles away!”

Smiling softly, Jehan gazed as Courfeyrac, who had finally stopped kissing their neck and simply plastered himself to their side instead, as though he was the sunshine. “I want to stargaze, and he can’t say no to me.” There was no shortage of smugness in their voice.

“Oh, the things I do for love,” Courfeyrac replied without hesitation, chuckling happily but not taking his eyes off Jehan, watching them as though they hung the moon.

“But you _do_ love me so really it’s your fault.” Courfeyrac’s teasing grin was undeniably loving and suddenly it was as though the two existed in their own little bubble of happiness, as though they had entirely forgotten that the others were still there.

“You’ve got me there.”

“And you’ve got me everywhere.” And they were kissing once again.

“Oh my god,” Enjolras exclaimed, his mock-frustration not even slightly covering up his wide smile at his friends’ happiness. “And you call _us _sappy!”

“Yeah!” Grantaire agreed, backing his boyfriend up with a matching, happy expression. “Y’all are disgusting.”

Jehan and Courfeyrac, who had remained attached at the lips as their friends jeered at them, separated, simultaneously raising their middle fingers at their friends.

Courfeyrac scoffed. “Go fuck yourself, R… said with love of course.” His voice was silky sweet in the way that he always did when he lovingly insulted his friends.

It was a common occurrence.

“Anyway… See you!” “Bisous!” They called over their shoulders as they walked away, Jehan blowing a kiss to them all. Not quite over the dramatic feeling he’d had since the show, Grantaire pretended to catch said kiss, pressed it to his heart and fainted dramatically. Enjolras, though he rolled his eyes, didn’t stop smiling.

“Seems we’re all departing now,” Cosette pointed out, fetching the car keys from her boyfriend’s pocket.

“Uh, Cosette? Can you actually drive?”

“Provisional licence, don’t worry.”

Enjolras wasn’t convinced but didn’t say anything, trusting Cosette, as one of the most sensible members of their society, to not do anything stupid.

***

Cramped. That was the only suitable way to describe the van as it trundled them all towards home.

Enjolras held nothing against the van for it, of course. Technically, the poor thing was only meant to carry five people at once and, yet, eight had been shoved in.

Éponine, of course, was driving, perfectly content in her front seat, and Gavroche, sleeping soundly – a fact that Enjolras was incredibly jealous of given how light of a sleeper he himself was – in the passenger seat. The benches that lived in the back of the van were probably closer to church pews than car seats. Well, I say ‘benches’… the truth is that there was one of these uncomfortable pew things and a couple of large wooden crates that were possibly the only other things in the world _more _uncomfortable than the bench.

And it wasn’t just people in the back. No, that would be too easy.

You see, despite it having been a month since they had moved and yet they weren’t even close to being unpacked yet. Every week they would say ‘okay, _this _weekend, we’ll unpack those boxes and get that stuff from the car!’ And every week it was bullshit.

So, shoved to the side-lines to make room for the people trying their best not to complain at the lack of space in the back, were a couple of boxes that hadn’t quite made their way up to the flat yet and about a dozen trinkets that had fallen from their own boxes that no one had been worried about enough to sort back into their rightful place.

In the end, no matter how much Grantaire, Enjolras and Combeferre loved Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta, the relief they felt when the three got out of the back at Musichetta’s house was immense and they were glad to see them go.

Five minutes later, when they pulled into the resident’s car park at the flat, Enjolras was glad for the seemingly infinite flights of stairs if it meant a reprieve from the single most uncomfortable seat he had sat on in a long time, not since his grandmother had last forced him into going to church at age eight.

Grantaire, on the other hand, would gladly have taken another thousand years in the back of that van in exchange for not having to carry Gavroche up flight after flight of stairs. Even with Combeferre’s help – he had insisted that because Éponine had driven he should be the one to help with Gavroche and Grantaire had made a very dramatic show of rejecting Enjolras’s offer to help, insisting that he was a gentleman and a gentleman should always carry his boyfriend’s boyfriend’s sleeping surrogate brother upstairs, “Seriously, Apollo, it’s chivalry 101, don’t you know!” – as much as Grantaire loathed to admit it, Gavroche wasn’t a little kid anymore and carrying him up so many stairs wasn’t an easy job.

Enjolras was the one to unlock the front door and even Éponine couldn’t keep the smile off her face when she saw Enjolras smiling proudly down at his new key. _‘Good for them,_’ she thought, _‘They deserve it.’ _

Still carrying Gavroche, Grantaire led Combeferre to Gavroche’s room, eager to get his promised present and go to bed. Combeferre, however, paused at the doorway into their youngest’s room.

“What’s wrong?” Grantaire questioned tiredly.

Combeferre shifted on his feet, clearly uncomfortable and unsure of himself. “Does he… um, I mean, would he be okay with me being in here?”

Grantaire furrowed his eyebrows with confusion. “‘Course! What are you talking about? You’re his friend, why wouldn’t he be comfortable with that?”

“I mean,” Combeferre shifted uncomfortably again, “me and Ép…” he trailed off and Grantaire couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Ferre, just because your fucking his sister doesn’t mean he’s going to suddenly start hating you! I mean, _I _don’t hate you!”

Combeferre smiled sheepishly and nodded, adjusting his arm around Gavroche and finally stepping through the doorway into Gavroche’s room.

Once Gavroche was settled in his bed (and Grantaire had taken pity on him and taken off his shoes and school uniform shirt – he had to wear it again the next day – and belt) the two of them headed back towards the hallway leading to the other two bedrooms.

Before they reached where Enjolras and Éponine were waiting for them, however, Combeferre grabbed Grantaire’s sleeve, stopping him in his tracks once again. “Thank you, R. For being so cool about Ép and me. It’s just…” he paused, searching for the right wording, “I know how important Gav and you are to her and I know that your opinion really matters to her, so… thanks.” He smiled and Grantaire, thinking he may perhaps have been spending a little too much time with the endlessly tactile Jehan and Courfeyrac, pulled him in for a hug.

“What was that about?” Enjolras asked, happy that his boyfriend and his best friend were getting along well enough that they were hugging (Éponine was very much in the same boat), but he was nonetheless confused.

“Kinship, dear Apollo!” Grantaire announced dramatically, though his dramatics certainly had a tired edge to them as the need for sleep caught up with him, “Kinship forged through the trials of tribulations of carrying that sack of potatoes I lovingly call my brother up a million flights of stairs!” He ended his dramatics by leaning his head on Enjolras’s shoulder and practically collapsing into his side. “Can we go to bed soon?” he half-groaned quietly into his boyfriend’s neck a moment later.

“Tired?”

Grantaire simply groaned once more in response and Enjolras assumed he was to take that as a ‘yes’.

Turning to Éponine and Combeferre who were perfectly contentedly chatting between themselves “I think we’re gonna head to bed now. Either of you need anything before we do?” he asked

Éponine shook her head, looking toward her boyfriend for confirmation on his end. Seeing that he was shaking his head too, Éponine smiled softly, shifting her focus back towards Enjolras. “We’re good. In fact, I think we’re gonna head that way, too.”

Enjolras nodded happily and nudged Grantaire with his shoulder. “Taire? Shall we go to bed?” Expecting Grantaire to react as tiredly as he had been a moment previously, Enjolras spoke with a tone soft enough to match. Grantaire’s actual reaction, however, did not match the tone he’d adopted.

It was as though he’d had a sudden, new burst of energy. He shot out of Enjolras’s arms, leaving his boyfriend confused in his wake with Éponine struggling not to laugh in the background, towards the allure of his bed where he could finally sleep in anticipation of both school and the second show of the run the next day.

“Night, guys!” he shouted carelessly over his shoulder, speed-walking towards his room so fast that Enjolras had to run to catch up.

“Wait! Wait!” he called ahead, grabbing Grantaire’s hand to slow him down once he finally caught up. “Before we get to your room and you see your present, I want to cover your eyes!” The giddy excitement he spoke with was so rare for Enjolras that Grantaire didn’t even think to argue, even if it slowed down his plan to get to sleep as soon as possible.

Obeying easily, Grantaire closed his eyes before Enjolras stepped behind him and covered his eyes with his own hands to make sure that there was no peaking going on. “If this is a sex thing,” Grantaire began, even as tired as he was, unable to hold himself back from the easy joke, “I’m totally down but can you at least let me get this red shit out of my hair first?”

Enjolras chuckled. “It’s not a sex thing.”

“Shame.”

Enjolras went silent for a moment, pretending to weigh up his options in his head as he led them over the threshold into Grantaire’s room.

“I mean,” he said eventually, “maybe later, but _this_ _specifically_ isn’t a sex thing.”

Grantaire nodded seriously, as though the secrets of the universe had just been revealed to him and, despite the slight nervousness in the pit of his stomach, Enjolras couldn’t help the soft smile that crept onto his face.

“You ready?” Enjolras asked and, feeling Grantaire nod underneath his hands, he took his hands away from his boyfriend’s eyes.

There, in the middle of Grantaire’s room, among the as yet unpacked boxes and general mess and clutter that had accumulated over the course of a month, was an easel. A beautiful wooden one no doubt made of some fancy wood like mahogany or oak or some other expensive shit that Grantaire didn’t understand the true value of and Grantaire could tell that he would be absolutely distraught the moment he inevitably got paint on it. But it wasn’t just a normal easel. Attached to it, was a mirror, clearly reflected Grantaire’s awed face back at him.

“Apollo…” he was awestruck and also, to be honest, kind of confused – in the best way, of course. “Where did you even get the idea for this?”

“Feuilly said your teacher told you to stop painting me as much. And, frankly? I agree. I’m getting sick of seeing my face. I’d much rather see yours anyway.” He spoke in that signature unequivocal, matter-of-fact way that he did sometimes and Grantaire fell a little more in love with him once again. He turned back to Enjolras, eyeing him seriously and Enjolras wasn’t quite sure whether he was very happy with the gift or phenomenally pissed off.

“I’m sure there’s a self-deprecating but undoubtedly hilarious joke in there somewhere, but I’m not gonna go there right now.” Without another word, Grantaire pulled Enjolras down into a loving kiss.

“So,” Enjolras pulled just a fraction of a centimetre away, just enough to speak without accidentally biting Grantaire – there would be time for that another day. “Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?” Grantaire pulled away entirely, turning back to the easel and approaching it carefully, as though he was afraid of breaking it. “Are you kidding me? I love it!” he stroked the wood of one of its legs with a sort of reverence. He faltered, however, a moment later as he broke out of this semi-stunned trance and turned back towards Enjolras. “I love _you_, Apollo.”

“I love you too, Grantaire…” he said without hesitation before something popped into his head. It was a scary thought, one that he’d been avoiding for almost three months. “Just,” he began, his brow furrowing and his tone changing in a way that got Grantaire’s attention right away (as though he ever _didn’t _have Grantaire’s attention), “I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

Enjolras took a breath in and out, steadying himself before he continued. “There was a point when we were both at the hospital and I’d had my stitches done, I’d been examined, scanned, poked and prodded and… you still hadn’t woken up. And I started to worry that you might not.” A little piece of Grantaire’s heart broke at that and he had to physically bite his tongue in order to stop himself interrupting with all of the reassurances that were trying to force their way out of his throat. “So,” Enjolras went on, raising a hand to hold Grantaire’s cheek, gently stroking his thumb over the mole underneath his left eye, “I want you to promise me that you will always try to come back to me. Because I couldn’t handle it, Taire. The thought of you leaving me so soon. I’m not ready to let you go.”

Grantaire couldn’t resist any longer, he tugged Enjolras impossibly closer and spoke his reassurances seriously into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck.

“I’m not going to leave you any time soon, Apollo. And, even if I do, God knows why I would, you’re perfect, but, if, for some ridiculous reason I have to go away from you, I promise that I will always, _always _come back to you.” He was so certain… Six months ago, if someone had told Enjolras that Grantaire would be _this _certain about something, he might’ve laughed in their face. Grantaire, too, might’ve laughed heartily, but if you were to tell him that the thing he was so, so certain about was Enjolras, well… that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

Grantaire has always been sure of Enjolras. The specifics of his devotion may have changed a little over the years as they both grew and figured themselves out, but, at its core, his adoration had remained the same.

He would follow wherever Enjolras led him, would remain at his side as long as he allowed. Faithful and loving until the end, no matter what the world threw at them.

It always amazed Enjolras how Grantaire could love him. After all, Grantaire had seen so many of the worst parts of him when they had argued in meetings and otherwise. To be honest, it baffled him. It baffled him how Grantaire could be so cynical and optimistic at the same time. Because, really, if he insisted on still loving him when he had seen the ugliness that Enjolras could show when he stopped considering the effect his words had on people, Grantaire must be the most optimistic man on the planet.

As they readied for bed that night, neither spoke much as they went about changing out of their day-clothes, brushing their teeth, moving the easel from its place in the centre of the room after they realised that it very much looked like an axe murderer in the dark, and washing the red out of Grantaire’s hair so that he didn’t stain the sheets. They were content with the silence around them. There was something wonderful about the way they worked and moved around each other, not quite a well-oiled machine, but there was something brilliantly human about it all, the way they would steal quick kisses as they passed each other, or Enjolras helped to wash Grantaire’s hair in the sink, nails gently massaging his scalp.

A realisation struck Grantaire as they finally settled into bed.

“I’ve never felt _so safe, _Apollo.” He planted a kiss on his boyfriend’s head and closed his eyes serenely and Enjolras’s chest swelled with a mixture of happiness and pride.

“I’m glad,” Enjolras replied because he felt there was very little else that he could say. It was true. He wanted nothing more than Grantaire’s safety and happiness and to know that they had it, finally, after so much, filled him with such _gladness _that very little else felt appropriate. “I love you, Grantaire.”

Grantaire only hummed in response at first, half asleep with his boyfriend’s head laid on his chest and so, so happy that Enjolras’s words took a few moments to get through.

By the time Grantaire responded, Enjolras, too, was nearly asleep. “I love you too.”

They fell into slumber with soft smiles on their faces and gladness in their hearts in a bubble of their safety.

It was wonderful.

***

¹That accolade goes to the week where they were testing out different red spray-in dyes and one of them, in particular, had stained his dark hair a rather startling shade of fiery red. That week the water had died at home and so he had no way of washing the damn stuff out and his anxiety was gnawing at him from the inside out. How was he supposed to face Enjolras – the man who practically bathed himself in the colour – with a patchy and frankly monstrously unflattering shade of it in one long stripe right at the front of his hair? And, so, in his anxious desperation to remain even slightly cool in the eyes of the man he loves, he thought it would be a good idea to avoid Enjolras entirely. That was, of course, only five days into the week when Grantaire had received a hard slap on the arm from Courfeyrac for making Enjolras think he hated him. Yes, truly the worst idea he’d had… at least regarding the musical, that is.

²In Grantaire’s somewhat limited experience of theatre productions at the upper school, he had noticed that theatre kids like red wine. He asked Jehan to explain it once and all he received in explanation was them draping themself dramatically over the nearest surface and swirling their wine glass as though they were at a high-end wine tasting instead of Bahorel’s basement watching the four-thousandth Sharknado movie of the night.

³Courfeyrac had specifically requested an Italian flag to reflect his own heritage and seeing it on the hoodie made him feel dully smug and somewhat patriotic for a country he hadn’t actually lived in since he was four in a weird way that he didn’t want to examine too closely.

4Not even librarians shush Enjolras, but that’s only because he respects the etiquette of the institution – one of the only institutions he respects for that matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an epilogue soon, I promise, but, for all intents and purposes, this is now done!
> 
> I was, for a while, toying with the idea of writing a third instalment set in their university years and maybe I still will, but, for now, consider this the end. I still have my ideas for the third part but, if I do go down that road it'll be in a good long while from now. 
> 
> I hope everyone is staying safe at the moment and I hope that this fic could be a sort of bright-spot during these uncertain times or, at least, offer some distraction when you needed it.
> 
> I am very much aware that this fic is not perfect. All chapters are unbeataed and many were released with only the most basic proofreading and I'm sure there are points where my lack of education on certain topics is glaringly obvious to everyone else, but I am, nonetheless, proud to have completed this behemoth of a fic and I hope you've all enjoyed being along for the ride.
> 
> Thank you and I love you. - Em <3


	24. Epilogue - Eight Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the end. Thank you so, so much for supporting me and my insanity and poor planning and posting schedules through this long, long, long-ass fic! Thank you!! I love you all and I hope you enjoy this Epilogue that, very much like this fic as a whole, ended up quite a bit longer than I had initially planned.
> 
> Just for a note, there are a few references to things happening between after they left St Michel and the epilogue that I have purposely left vague so that if I eventually come back to write the third instalment, I can pick up where I left off and go into more detail with that stuff. Don't worry! Nothing spoilery in case you're worried! Just some allusions to events not yet written!
> 
> Okay, let's go, time for the end. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Eight Years Later

It was exceedingly odd to be back at their old school. Not least because they were there at _night. _

The amount of oddness they were feeling as they stole in through the back entrance was increased tenfold by the fact that, apart from the occasional water fountain having been upgraded or a dustbin being in a slightly different place, absolutely nothing had changed in seven years.

When Enjolras had suggested a little midnight (more like 3 in the morning) breaking and entering at their old school while they were back in town for the summer, Grantaire had said yes immediately, if only for the sake of being able to say that he broke into his old school at night because holy shit that’s a pretty cool thing o be able to say.

“Aren’t you worried about getting caught on CCTV?”

Enjolras laughed. “Please! My god, the school district does _not _fund the school enough for them to have working cameras. Trust me, none of them are hooked up. It’s all for intimidation.”

Grantaire raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t surprising particularly, just rather disappointing. “Thank you, my darling Apollo, for that truly damning insight into the state of our alma mater.”

“You asked,” Enjolras shrugged, trying not to think about how angry it made him and instead focusing on the ball of white-hot nerves in the pit of his stomach.

Grantaire was pulling him by the hand, where to? Enjolras wasn’t sure. Though, Grantaire certainly was.

Madame Magloire’s classroom was the same if slightly updated to fit with the time that had passed. There was still art on the walls, still one of Grantaire’s pieces actually that she had insisted on keeping after he left so that she could remember her favourite pupil, there were still beanbags scattered about the room and wonderful floaty curtains barely covering the windows. It wasn’t the same without the music that should have been playing through the speaker, but it was close enough to his memories that Grantaire was hit with a pang of nostalgia.

Madame Houcheloup’s classroom was identical. Or, maybe not. To be honest, Grantaire couldn’t remember all of the details of this room. Generally speaking, he had always been far too distracted by what was happening in the room than the room itself.

Of course, some things were definitely different, that Grantaire knew for certain.

The massive betting jar was no longer in the cupboard, the ceiling tile that Bahorel had accidentally broken in two on their last day had long since been replaced, and Madame Houcheloup had replaced her old wooden desk with an ergonomic new one that was a mixture of stainless steel and reclaimed wood that would likely make a hipster orgasm on the spot.

Things were different.

But that was okay.

The betting jar was safe and sound in their flat, tucked away in the corner of the living room, currently housing the prize money for whoever correctly guessed the subject of Grantaire’s next tattoo (All but Marius had insisted that Grantaire already had so many tattoos dedicated to Enjolras and that he wouldn't be able to come up with anymore. Fools. Approximately one month later, Grantaire had a new tattoo: a branch of laurel encircling his forearm, weaving between his other tattoos and curling onto his thumb where he had a scar from a particularly vicious nail from an IKEA wardrobe when he and Enjolras had moved in together. Marius would soon be around £120 richer.) Bahorel still had the ceiling tile. After breaking it, he had boosted Feuilly onto his shoulders to retrieve it for him and had taken it home with the insistence that Feuilly and Grantaire band together and do something artistic with it to go on the wall of his room when he moved into university housing. It hadn’t stayed there for long – neither had Bahorel, for that matter – but the vaguely artistic wall mount had followed Bahorel wherever he went.

As for the desk, well, Enjolras decided that that was probably for the best. After all, with the number of things they’d done on the old desk after all of their friends had filed out of the meeting for the day, he was sure he’d probably get a new one too. Besides, they had done much more in their bed and that was tucked away, safe and sound, at home.

It was easy to get caught up in the nostalgia of the place. The memories that seemed to swirl around him every which way he looked, even in the dark.

But Enjolras couldn’t afford to get side-tracked; he had a plan.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing both Grantaire’s attention and his hand, “Come on, I have somewhere I want to go.” He didn’t say anything more, simply tugging a mildly confused Grantaire to follow him out of the classroom door.

Though it was tempting to stroll leisurely through the hall, basking and reminiscing until the sun came up, the nerves that Enjolras was feeling spurred him into a run. Grantaire didn’t think much of it, glad to relish in the time spent together, laughing and pulling each other along towards wherever they were going.

Together, they ran through the hallways, taking the long way round and letting the sound of their heavy steps mingle with their boisterous laughter in the air. It had been a while since either of them had felt so, so… _light. _Plenty had changed with them since they left St Michel. The full story of their relationship that had brought them to this day was a long one, full of ups and downs and stubbornness and frustration and breaks and learning to love each other all over again… but _that_ _love_! That love! It was so _good._

They were their best when they were around each other, something that Enjolras had noted, finding it rather ironic considering that, more than anyone else, they brought out the worst in each other too. They both knew how to press each other’s buttons, they knew how to hit each other where it hurt and trusted each other not to do it.

Grantaire had never felt so laid bare as when he was with Enjolras and Enjolras felt exactly the same. Their days of trying to hide the “ugly” parts of themselves, the parts that they themselves saw and wish they hadn’t, were over. It should be frightening: laying everything you are out in front of possibly the one person whose opinion you care most about and saying “This is me. This is exactly how you can hurt me worse than anyone else on the face of the earth ever will. I love you.” but it didn’t frighten either of them.

Not anymore.

These thoughts were swirling around like a whirlpool in Enjolras’s soul, but they just spurred him on – they told him that he was right.

The theatre was exactly as Grantaire remembered it. Large yet, at the same time, cosy and, even after all this time, so, so familiar. Letting their joined hands slip apart, Enjolras moved towards the seats, remembering all of the times he’d watched Grantaire up on that stage, and Grantaire approached the edge of the stage. He trailed his hand along the edge of the wood and couldn’t help the fond smile that made its way onto his face. When they’d left, he had been happy to no longer have to be in education, but, now, he couldn’t help but wish a little wistfully that he’d had a little more time at St Michel. He’d spent only two years there and, yet, coming back felt like a homecoming of sorts.

It’d been years since he’d been up on a stage for real and a part of him missed it, the lights, the sweating and the dead weight of anxiety in the pit of his stomach that he would forget a line, all of it. But, at the same time, he knew it wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t on _that stage_.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras called from the seats, breaking him out of his reverie. “You know I love you, right?”

Grantaire let out a small huff of laughter. “How could I forget when you remind me every day?”

Enjolras paused in mock-thought for a moment as Grantaire started towards him. “Oh, I could always stop…” he bluffed, not breaking eye contact as Grantaire got closer and closer until they were toe to toe.

“Don’t you dare,” he paused, pressing forward to capture Enjolras’s lips in a near-searing kiss. He pulled away a moment later, tugging a whine from his boyfriend’s throat as he went. “I love you too. Just in case you forgot in the ten minutes since I last said it.”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, savouring each moment of kisses and happiness and ever-so-slightly wandering hands with no rush to go anywhere beyond where they were right now.

There was no rush, that’s true, but Enjolras was still being spurred on by something explosive in his chest, pushing him towards the night’s goal. He pulled away after a few minutes, finally having worked up the strength to do so. “Come with me,” he said quietly. Something mischievous yet determined twinkled in his eye that made curiosity flare up in Grantaire’s stomach and pushed him to follow his boyfriend.

“Apollo…” he started, bewildered as Enjolras led them backstage and into one of the stairwells. Enjolras simply shushed his curiosity, clearly wanting to maintain this air of mystery he had created.

The stairwell was as it had been on the opening night of ‘Be More Chill’: grey and dirty and with the ever-present scent of frustration, desperation and Lynx Africa. Whether any of the students actually still wore Lynx Africa wasn’t something Enjolras knew, but he wouldn’t be surprised if you were to tell him that no one had actually touched a can of the stuff in thirty years and that it genuinely just took that long for the lingering stench to dissipate. Though change was something that Enjolras was eternally striving for, this time, not only did it very much work in his favour that there had been none, but it was somehow calming the nerves clawing in his chest as they approached their goal.

_Alright, _Enjolras thought, out of stairs to climb without ruining the surprise, _It’s now or never. _And he had been waiting far too long, to wait another second.

***

You know when you’re driving a car and it stalls and you kind of lurch forward and then everything is quiet for a moment and you’re trying not to panic but you feel so embarrassed because the other road-users are surely laughing at the incapable twat who can’t drive their car properly and until you get going again the world feels like it has simultaneously halted and is moving far too fast for you to keep up? Yeah, that’s how Grantaire felt.

“Holy fuck…” it was a little breathless – understandably so – and the moment the words slipped from Grantaire’s lips, he regretted that that was the first thing he thought to say with Enjolras down on one knee in front of him.

After that, though, no more words came from Grantaire’s mouth.

His mind was a blank slate of about 80% shock and about 20% mild panic. Truly, he felt like that scene inside SpongeBob’s brain where everything is on fire. But… in a good way?

He didn’t realise that he hadn’t said anything for several long moments until Enjolras snapped him out of his trance-like state, clearly awaiting an answer.

“Grantaire, love, please, my knee is killing me,” Enjolras chuckled slightly nervously. It was a bit strange really, using humour as a coping mechanism is usually Grantaire’s prerogative.

Grantaire blinked a few times before he could even think of what to say. “You’re sure?” he said after a few moments and, seeing the confusion written of Enjolras’s face, clarified. “Not about the knee thing, obviously, just… you’re sure you want to marry me?” There was an element of genuine perplexity in Grantaire’s voice and its mere presence broke Enjolras’s heart, just a little.

Nevertheless, he smiled and laughed lightly, trying to ignore the aching in his knee. “Would I be down here on one knee if I wasn’t? Grantaire, I love you, I have since we were seventeen, no, even longer, since I don’t know when. I can barely remember I time when I didn’t love you. And that’s totally okay, because I don’t want to! I don’t want to remember a time in which you weren’t a part of my life. And I don’t want you to _ever _not be apart of my life again.” He paused taking a breath. “So,” he continued, glad to repeat himself as many times as Grantaire needed to hear it, “Will you marry me, Grantaire?”

A grin of genuine elation spread on Grantaire’s face and he chuckled quietly. “So, it’s not just for the tax benefits?”

Despite the pain in his knee that truly was getting more unpleasant by the second, Enjolras laughed too. Vinyl flooring is very much not made for romantic proposals. “Well, not exclusively for the tax benefits, but you have to admit, they are a perk.”

“Oh, well then, when you put it like that…” his tone was so casual, a laugh lilting his voice to an almost joking tone, and the contract this tone offered when he continued was practically enough to give Enjolras whiplash. “…Yes.” The word was quiet, said on a breath, but with so much sincerity that Enjolras was sure that he’d have been able to hear it in his soul regardless of volume.

“You’re sure?” he asked, repeating Grantaire’s words with a teasing edge to his voice.

Grantaire hummed thoughtfully. “Can I have a few days to think about it?”

“Of course,” Enjolras said quickly, completely having missed the joking part of Grantaire’s deadpan humour.

Ever the slave to his desire to do the right thing – one of the many things Grantaire loved about him – Enjolras could truly be dense sometimes. Grantaire couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped his throat then. The sound ripped through the quiet in the air and Enjolras startled slightly, wondering what he had missed. “What’s so funny?”

“Get off your knee and come and kiss me, fiancé.”

The smile on Enjolras’s face was blinding and they were kissing a moment later. Well, they were both probably grinning too much for it to be considered an actual kiss, but their lips were together and that was good enough for them.

Enjolras broke away a moment later, elation still evident on his face even as he spoke, his voice lightly teasing and full of so, so much love. “So, just for the sake of clarity, is that a ‘yes’?”

Grantaire was tempted to say something snarky like ‘What do you think, Apollo? You’re the one with the fancy degrees, after all…’

But he didn’t.

Instead, he found himself breathing out an almost-awestruck ‘yes’ and forging forward to kiss his boyfr- _fiancé _once again.

Enjolras chuckled into the kiss before breaking away once again, much to Grantaire’s frustration. “Do you want to put the ring on, then?”

Grantaire barely had to nod before the ring was being pushed onto his finger. The moment the silver band was on his finger, cheers erupted from somewhere above them, the shouts and applause made all the louder by the ever-present echo of the stairwell.

In a matter of seconds, the hoard that was their friends came barrelling down the stairs, descending on the couple in a mess of waving hands and congratulations and hugs that were closer to some wrestling move than actual hugs.

They quickly ended up in a pile of people, no one wanting to take turns hugging the happy couple, far more content to crush them with their collective love. Civilised it was not, strictly speaking, but neither of them could imagine it any other way.

The road to this point had been far from smooth. They had fought and disagreed and grown so much since the day of their fight in year 12, even after they left school, after the drama should have ended, it didn’t. There was always going to be drama and disagreements and something to overcome, but, now, they were confident, certain that whatever it was they could overcome it together, as a family. Neither of them needed rings or a certificate to tell them that they were a family, they’d been a family – Enjolras, Grantaire, Éponine, Gavroche, Combeferre, and all of their wonderfully insane friends – for years and years and they couldn’t imagine it any other way.

The truth is, they’d talked about it once – neither had been entirely sober and the exact details were fuzzy for them both – and the general consensus had been that the only thing better than pissing off homophobes by obnoxiously kissing in front of them at pride, was being able to exercise their right to marry (pissing off every homophobe in principal) and kiss in front of them with matching rings on their wedding fingers. That and eternal love or whatever.

Wedding planning would begin tomorrow, guided closely by Courfeyrac and Cosette who – they were reliably informed while in the cuddle pile of congratulations – had begun planning themselves for well over a decade (Courfeyrac had started first and Cosette had joined later when he had brought the binder out at the back of a meeting during which Grantaire and Enjolras had been too busy arguing to notice anything else happening in the room). For now, though, not a single member of their group had any intention of halting the celebration before dawn, when they would inevitably have to stumble drunkenly out of the school before the custodial staff got there for their early shift.

It was the stage, the stage that had housed one of the worst moments of Grantaire’s life and so many of the best, that they moved to with their champagne and hamper full of party snacks when the heat in the stairwell became unbearable. They drank and sang and ate re-enacted (read: overacted) Shakespearean monologues with the help of Joly who fondly remembered his theatre-tech days and was all too eager to fiddle with the curtains and lighting controls while Feuilly delivered an eccentric and utterly insane rendition of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech.

All in all, Grantaire thought, with his chest warm from a couple of glasses of wine and champagne but enough clarity from having rejected the bottle of Smirnoff Ice (Bahorel had argued that since they’re back at school they should be drinking like teenagers again and now was subsequently absolutely legless with Courfeyrac and Gavroche, loudly singing Piano Man from where they were slumped at the back of the stage) it didn’t feel dramatic or exaggerated to say that this felt like possibly the best day of his life.

It was all perfect, everything just felt… right.

He was sitting in the middle of the stage of his adolescent years on a picnic blanket with Enjolras head on his shoulder and Éponine’s feet in his lap. Éponine was leaning against Combeferre, sleepily nursing her fourth – or, was it fifth? – glass of champagne and giggling slightly as an equally tipsy Jehan made a dumb joke about bubbles. Joly had since descended from the tech box and was nestled between Musichetta and Bossuet, trying his best to hide the bottle of Smirnoff from Bossuet as he was the only one of the group with work the next day and, knowing his luck, he’d still be hungover by then. Cosette was conspicuously not drinking the champagne, strictly sticking to the premade Shirly Temple she’d brought along, and wearing a loose-cut dress that no longer quite hid what they were trying to hide, everyone obviously knew, though no one had mentioned it yet.

Cue Gavroche and his endlessly tactful social skills.

“So,” he began, his voice carrying over to them from where he was laughing haplessly with Bahorel and Courfeyrac, having long since forgotten the words to Piano Man and regressed into loud mumbling and giggling, “Have you two picked out a name yet?”

Cosette’s hand faltered, holding her bottle halfway up to her face. She looked like she was grappling with her thoughts, deciding what to do, Marius, on the other hand, had no such qualms. “What do you mean?” he asked, face flushed and tone entirely unconvincing.

Even sober, the group likely would have struggled to keep in their laughter at Marius’s awful lying skills. Now, as tipsy as they all were, no attempts were made at all.

The laughter was not meanspirited and, eventually, even Cosette sighed resignedly and joined in.

“Jeanne Fantine,” she said eventually, smiling as she spoke, “Jeanie for short. She’s due in three months exactly, on the 6th of September.”

The congratulatory cuddle pile was a lot more careful of the pregnant woman than it was for Enjolras and Grantaire, but, then again, everyone was rather sluggish from lack of sleep and alcohol consumption anyway, so it’s not as though everyone had much strength to smother her, anyway.

All together on the stage, happy and chatting and getting on with their lives, Grantaire sighed contentedly. _Yeah_, he thought with a clarity that might have been alarming if he wasn’t in such a good mood, _this_ _is_ _good. I am happy. We are happy and we are safe and we are alive._

_We are living._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! It's over! Done! Gone! Well, until I inevitably crack and write the third part but that won't be for a while and I wanted to leave the story in a way that is (hopefully!) satisfyingly ended enough that no one feels like they were left hanging with it.
> 
> Once again, I can't thank everyone who has read this enough. Seriously, you're kudos and comments on both this and TLOTW have fuelled me to finish the longest thing I have ever written and I cannot express how grateful I am. Truly. I love you all and I hope you're staying safe and getting through okay in these weird times. 
> 
> Currently, I plan to write something for barricade day this year, likely two somethings. One happy thing and one sad thing that makes me want to claw my heart out of my chest. So that's fun!
> 
> Anyway, thank you again! So much! God, you haven't the slightest clue how happy I am with this fic as a whole. Obviously, there's some minor stuff I might go back and change when I have time, but, overall, I am proud of myself and so, so grateful for all of your encouragement! 
> 
> Thank you, I love you all!  
-Em <3

**Author's Note:**

> As always, every single comment and kudos I receive is appreciated immensely!


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